Neill read in an article last night that 21% of the players in the NFL have some sort of criminal record. Am I the only one that thinks that is a lot?? So, I did a little searching on the internet today, and found a few more tidbits about those facts…

21 percent of the NFL’s players have been charged with a serious crime. How serious? The docket begins with assault, rape, and domestic violence and keeps spiraling out of control. These are not just blind allegations; the authors name names and match felonies to players. Some of the better-known examples: Cornelius Bennett–rape and sexual assault; Cortez Kennedy–domestic violence; Michael Irvin–cocaine and marijuana possession; Nate Newton–sexual assault; Warren Moon–domestic violence; Jake Plummer–sexual abuse; Andre Rison–aggravated assault; Bruce Smith–driving under the influence; and Deion Sanders–aggravated assault, disorderly convict, trespassing, and battery.

I didn’t know that Jake Plummer and his porn star hair and mustache were accused of sexual abuse.  It all makes sense now.

Then, this other guy made up his own “NFL All-Criminal Team” which I thought was pretty funny.  You can read the majority of it on your own by clicking here, but here is who made the team and some ones that I thought were funny or interesting…

1.  Todd Marinovich - QB

2.  O.J. Simpson - RB
     The Juice is an obvious choice, so we won’t spend much time with his legal qualifications for this team. Double-murder, here’s your jersey.

3.  Lawrence Phillips - RB
     While at Nebraska, in what may be his most famous carry, he was accused of breaking into his ex’s room, dragging her by the hair down three flights of stairs, and jacking her head against a mailbox, which also earns him a nomination for the All-Caveman Team.

4.  Rae Carruth - WR
     Guilty of the most heinous crime in the history of the NFL (remember, OJ was acquitted), Carruth is an obvious choice. He orchestrated the execution-style murder of his pregnant girlfriend because she refused to have an abortion.

5.  Michael Irvin - WR
     His roster spot is further solidified by the fact that he once had a hit out on him – by a cop. Former Dallas police officer Johnnie Hernandez was arrested after he paid $2960 to an undercover DEA agent in order to have Irvin murdered. Awesome.

6.  Mark Chmura - TE
     Bring it home, Chewy!

7.  Barret Robbins - OL
     Previously best known for disappearing the night before Oakland’s Super Bowl thrashing in 2003, Robbins trumped that the following year by attacking three police officers who, being armed, shot him twice in the chest.

8.  Nate Newton - OL
     Newton was a shoe-in for this team when he got busted in Louisiana with 213 pounds of marijuana after being pulled over for a traffic violation (who breaks traffic laws with a van full of drugs?), but then he made a serious case to become a team captain six weeks later when, while out on bail, he got busted again. This time it was 175 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his car.

9.  Justin Strzelczyk - OL
     After a hit-and-run accident in New York, police chased his pickup 40 miles, during which Strzelczyk flipped off troopers and at one point threw a beer bottle at them. In the end, Strzelczyk crashed head on at 90 miles per hour into a tanker truck carrying corrosive acid, leaving an explosive scene police compared to an airplane crash.

10.  Chris Terry - OL
     Arrested for wife beating in 2002. While that’s nothing new in the NFL, it is worth noting that in this instance he slammed her into a wall, head-butted her and stuffed her face into a pillow – while their two children watched.

11. Keno Hills - OL

DEFENSE

1.  Ray Lewis - LB

2.  Lawrence Taylor - LB
     In his now infamous “60 Minutes” interview, Taylor claimed to have spent thousands of dollars a day on narcotics and to have hired prostitutes to go to opponents’ hotel rooms the night before games.

3.  Bill Romanowski - LB

4.  Alonzo Spellman - DL
     Spellman is the only member of this team to have been charged with terrorizing passengers on a commercial flight and forcing an emergency landing. According to investigators, once on the ground Spellman told the pilot “I am about to rip your throat out.”

5. Darrell Russell - DL

6. Mark Gastineau - DE

7. Jim Dunaway - DE
     Charged with murder in the death of his former wife, Dunaway is the unpublicized OJ Simpson (and, in fact, was a teammate of The Juice in Buffalo for three seasons). Prior to her death, she had won a divorce judgment that gave her more than 800 acres the couple owned, $1,800 a month in alimony and half of Dunaway’s NFL pension. A grand jury assigned to the case did not indict him.

8. Gene Atkins - S
     Most recently he barricaded himself in his house after his wife called police claiming he had shoved her against a wall, choked her, bit her and then beat her with a remote control. Then, when told by police that he was under arrest, Atkins replied, “No I’m not” and punched the officer in the throat, then pushed him outside the home.

9. Eugene Robinson - S
     On the eve of the Super Bowl and a mere twelve hours after receiving the Bart Starr Award from Athletes in Action, an award honoring high moral character, Robinson was busted for offering an undercover Miami policewoman $40 for oral sex.

10. Corey Fuller - CB

11. Samari Rolle - CB

SPECIAL TEAMS

1. Sebastian Janikowski - K
     He’s been arrested for bar fights, drinking and driving (.20 BAC), reckless driving, bribing a police officer, evidence tampering and possession of a drug best known in the media as “the date rape drug.”

2.  Todd Sauerbrun - P

COACH

1.  Jimmy Johnson
     Seeing as how he’s already coached half this team, he’s the obvious choice for the job. Whether you’re looking at his days at the University of Miami or with the Dallas Cowboys, this guy has never met a criminal he wouldn’t put in the starting lineup.