Jones' career now at NFL's mercy

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The phone rang roughly 14 seconds after the announcement from the NFL this week that Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam Jones had been suspended yet again.Then it rang again. And again. And just kept on ringing.Many of the scouts who have been on the receiving end of hundreds of calls over the last 20 draft seasons or so just wanted to make it clear once again.That when it comes to football, you can scout the outside of a player, can see the physical side; but what's on the inside -- now that's the hard part.And getting more difficult to figure out all the time, it seems."I know I thought he had definitely turned over a new leaf," said Denver Broncos safety Calvin Lowry, who played alongside Jones with the Tennessee Titans. "I still definitely hope he can turn it around because he can do some special things when the opportunity presents itself, but you keep putting yourself in certain situations, it's not going to look good for you. And right now he's at the mercy of Mr. Roger Goodell." Yes, Jones is. The NFL commissioner Goodell suspended Jones this week for at least four games, but called the suspension "indefinite."Which means it ends only when Goodell says it ends, and not a minute before. The first one went 17 months; this one could go longer.It's been a long fall for Jones, whom the Titans selected with the sixth pick of the '05 draft, forever sandwiched between Carnell "Cadillac" Williams and Troy Williamson.The Titans debated long and hard in their draft meetings that year, gathered information about Jones' off-the-field troubles at West Virginia -- a tally that included a bar fight in which he hit another person with a pool cue -- and bickered almost up to the second when they made the pick.Those against the selection simply weren't sure Jones could, or would, ever conduct himself in a way to succeed in the league, especially with the signing bonus befitting a top 10 pick in his pocket."And it was all the off-the-field incidents with him," Lowry said. "It was never like he was a problem in the locker room. It was all off the field."Asked if Jones had a mentor in his time with the Titans, or even wanted one, Lowry added: "It's hard to mentor grown men -- we all have money, we all have free time. . . . But I hope he finds somebody who can help him."Jones was arrested six times and involved in 12 incidents in which police were called in his three years in Nashville.So gifted on the field, however -- at West Virginia, he once had a leaping interception, a forced fumble and recovered a fumble in the same game against Miami -- the Titans made Jones the first player still serving a suspension to be traded because Jones had found another team to give him yet another chance.The Cowboys surrendered a fourth-round pick in April's draft and a sixth-rounder in 2009. Dallas then signed Jones to a new contract, a four-year deal that included no signing bonus.The deal even had a provision that if Jones weren't reinstated by Goodell for this season, the Titans would send the Cowboys a fourth-round pick in '09, and if Jones were reinstated and suspended again, as he has been, the Titans would send the Cowboys a fifth-round pick in April's draft.Jones also agreed to give $500,000 to the charity of the Titans' choosing because Titans owner K.S. "Bud" Adams Jr. was so furious at having given Jones so much money, then having to trade the troubled player, that he almost scuttled the trade.Jones also forfeited about $1 million the Titans had not paid him during his suspension in the 2007 season.The Cowboys tried what they could to keep it all from going bad, even surrounding Jones with a mini-security force. Ironically, or sadly, depending on how you look at it, it was a member of this security detail who got into a confrontation with Jones at a Dallas hotel that was the flash point for this latest suspension.This time, Goodell said, "I think it's going to be up to Adam," when asked about Jones' future.Poll the same football people now who had tried to weigh what Jones could do on the field, their desire to win enough games to keep their jobs and the parade full of red flags in Jones' non-football life, and it's clear that the jury is still full of undecideds.Full of people who wonder if and how much Jones will ever play in the NFL again, or if they'll be the ones lining up to give him another chance if Goodell does, and then try to publicly explain it.However it goes, Jones' short-lived career to this point is certainly yet another cautionary tale. One filled with as much potential and promise as downfall and misery.But in the end, the only person who can fix it for Jones is the same one who made this big of a mess.And that's Jones himself.(Contact Jeff Legwold of the Rocky Mountain News at legwoldj(at)rockymountainnews.com.)