AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > April > 13 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USFalcons years ahead of NFL on bad behavior
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
With a little push (OK, from me), the Falcons were among the NFL pioneers on something. Let’s start with the present before returning to the future.
Under commissioner Roger Goodell’s new policy of nearly zero tolerance for those involved with off-the-field silliness, each team must have a player-development director. These folks help with financial advice. They help with housing needs. They even help with explaining why the dessert fork is closest to the plate.
The primary role of these folks is to help keep guys out of jail.
Chances are, Falcons officials nodded between yawns during Goodell’s announcement this week. They’ve had such a person for a while. These days, his name is Kevin Winston, entering his second season in Atlanta after five years with the New York Jets. The Falcons’ original such person was Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, highly acclaimed in that role by the NFL for 13 years before he joined the Falcons’ strength-and-conditioning staff.
The thing is, the Falcons have employed player-development directors longer than most of their peers. Partly because of omniscience, and mostly because they hadn’t a choice.
Long before Pacman Jones began spending more time in courtrooms than locker rooms and Chris Henry’s four arrests in three different states within months and 50-something other NFL players unofficially auditioning for “Cops” during the past two years, there were all of those knuckleheads on the Falcons.
We’re talking about 1993, when linebacker Darion Conner was charged with DUI. Twice. Cornerback Bruce Pickens was charged with rape, but he was cleared on his way to being traded. Quarterback Bob Gagliano was charged with DUI. Wide receiver Andre Rison was arrested for an altercation with his girlfriend that involved Rison firing a gun into the air outside of a supermarket. Why? Well, he said somebody questioned his manhood.
This was before Rison’s girlfriend torched his $2 million house and had Rison claiming afterward that he was contemplating suicide.
During the five years before all of that, two Falcons died in automobile wrecks (Brad Beckman and Ralph Norwood) and another succumbed to a drug overdose (David Croudip).
I suggested back then that the Falcons hire somebody to bridge the gap between players and management. Somebody who could be the organization’s Harry Edwards, the noted sociologist from the San Francisco Bay Area whom Bill Walsh hired to counsel players, coaches and others during his 49ers dynasty. Somebody of high moral standards who nevertheless could relate to the Falcons’ knuckleheads.
Somebody named Billy Johnson, the former standout Falcons player who was an educator and coach in Atlanta on the high school and collegiate level.
The late Rankin Smith Sr., the Falcons’ original owner, called me after reading my column and said, “I’ve talked to Billy off and on about this, and we’re going to talk some more.”
Then Smith hired him.
Splendid move. Compared to the ugliness of the early 1990s, the Falcons quickly became NFL choir boys, and the streak has continued. In recent years, there were those Rod Coleman moments (jail time for disorderly conduct after a traffic incident and the crashing of his Escalade after swerving away from a deer). There also were those Michael Vick controversies, ranging from “Ron Mexico” to that trick water-bottle thing. Still, the Falcons aren’t the Bengals (nine players arrested in nine months), and Winston hopes to keep it that way, without help from the commissioner’s crackdown.
“The new policy really doesn’t affect what we do, because we kind of do programs year round,” Winston said. “Through Falcons University, we’ve done orientations for all of our incoming free agents and rookies. We’ll continue to look at resources to be able to support our players.
“We understand it’s a small percentage of guys that get in trouble, but nonetheless, we want to make sure we have things in place as players need them.”
Those players will need them. Unless they prefer mug shots to publicity shots.
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