While it remains a long shot of happening, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is actually entertaining the idea of bringing back cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones according to a report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Jones apparently isn’t concerned about Pacman’s off-field issues and is willing to look past the fact that he could be facing more legal problems stemming from an incident in which three men claimed that he hired a hit man to kill them in 2007. (Although to be fair, police have said that they’re not actively investigating the case even though it remains open, so it would appear that Pacman won’t be charged with anything.)

Even if it’s a long shot that the Cowboys bring back Pacman, it’s baffling that Jones is even considering it. Outside of the potential headache that Pacman is off field, the Cowboys have a couple of young corners in Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick that they’re trying to develop. If Pacman were re-signed, Dallas essentially risks stunting the growth of those two players and for what? To have Pacman play until he gets into trouble?

I thought Jones and the Cowboys were trying to move away from some of the locker room issues that they’ve had in the past? They released T.O. because Tony Romo and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett couldn’t work with him and now Jones is ready to bring back another potential distraction. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Pacman can still play. When he wasn’t riding out a suspension last year, he was productive in coverage, was a reliable tackler and showed some big-play potential in returning punts. But it’s not a matter of if he’ll get into trouble off the field – it’s when. The guy fights with everybody (including his own bodyguards) and can’t be trusted.

Jones seemingly can’t resist adding talent at any cost and he can’t help but believe that he can turn a troubled player around. But he needs to take a pass on this one and keep his team moving in the right direction. Nobody said he had to fill his locker room with choir boys, but that doesn’t mean he should take a risk by signing (or re-signing in this case) malcontents either.

Tom Curran of NBC Sports makes an excellent point about the relationship between the Dallas Cowboys and Adam Jones, and how the team is essentially just using “Pacman” as their circus “freak show.”

Given the pain Jones has caused himself and others and the limb the Cowboys made the rest of the league climb out on for a guy who’s a lock to offend again, the honorable thing would have been for the Cowboys to somehow shield Jones’ re-entry into the NFL from the cameras.
Would HBO have like it? No. Did it make for great TV to see Jones dumping trash cans filled with water from his balcony on unsuspecting teammates, catching six footballs at once, saying about T.O., “That boy crazy!” and sending correspondence to the league to ask for reinstatement? Yeah.

But the whole operation served to give Jones — someone not mentally equipped to deal with the severity of his situation and the reality of the expectations set upon him — the perception that he wasn’t a person or an employee of an NFL franchise but a reality TV star.

And what do reality TV stars inevitably do? They melt down. And then they land on the scrap heap with the rest of pop culture’s discards to go and do whatever it is they do until they make their next and final headline (before their obit) with an arrest in a Target parking lot.

But that’s OK with Jerry Jones, the NFL’s P.T. Barnum. Think P.T. cared if The Bearded Lady had esteem issues and a drinking problem that raged? Not if she showed up lookin’ freaky.

So today, now that Pac is back in the news for public stupidity, we’re supposed to cluck-cluck at how stupid he is. Sorry, I’m not with that program. To me, that fact was already clear. Instead, I shake my head at the team that’s exploited him.

Outstanding points. I’m guilty of using Pacman in my, “He’s just an idiot posts,” but Curran makes the first spot-on assessment of this whole situation. When the Cowboys first signed Pacman everyone said, “Now see – they want to help him. They’re keeping tabs on him and trying to clean up his image.” But as Curran points out, Jerry Jones and the team has just been exploiting him for exactly who he is – a guy who, in Curran’s own words is, “intellectually overmatched by the simple workings and expectations of society.”