Mediocrity most likely will preclude the Bears from having a moral dilemma, and a good thing, too, because they have enough of the ordinary kind on draft day.
Drafting 18th Saturday, the Bears will be picking among the leftovers again, not that it matters. The next John Thierry will be waiting.
The Bears will not get a chance to consider Lawrence Phillips, as the Bulls once had to contemplate Quintin Dailey, an example of someone else who came with his own head shots, front and side.
It is left to others to decide if Phillips, the Nebraska running back, should be made immediately rich and reprieved, the Jets or Jacksonville, Arizona or the newly rechristened Baltimore Ravens, in that order. They must ponder weak and weary the downside of anointing a man often at the mercy of his own anger.
Rage would not seem to be a concern as much as a requirement in professional football, yet we are in the age of O.J. where teams must pretend at least to care about citizenship.
The NFL is sensitive enough to the public relations liability of Phillips that he will not be included in person among the top candidates at draft headquarters.
Phillips dragged an ex-girlfriend by her hair down three flights of stairs and had to miss six football games because of it. There are those in Nebraska who still blame the girl.
Luckily, redemption and the Fiesta Bowl coincided so Phillips could update his resume, share in a national championship and announce that he had gotten all he could from college and would enter the NFL draft.
Phillips became by consensus the best running back, ahead of Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George of Ohio State and Michigan’s Tshimanga Biakabutuka and Texas A & M’s Leeland McElroy.
This is in a draft that has no quarterbacks or Miami Hurricanes to speak of, so possibly Phillips is being overexamined, though that is like saying the ex-girlfriend was underscolded.
Add UCLA’s Karim Abdul-Jabbar and that makes five pretty good running backs to chose among, and if fullbacks Mike Alstott of Purdue and Jerald Moore of Oklahoma are considered, any team that needs help in the backfield still can do fine without endorsing Phillips.
This is the year of the wide receiver in the draft, with possibly USC’s Keyshawn Johnson going No. 1. His chief defect is only a loud and self-absorbing ego, though as a young teen Johnson did spend time in reform school.
Behind Johnson are Terry Glenn of Ohio State, Derrick Mayes of Notre Dame, Eddie Kennison of LSU and Bobby Engram of Penn State. And this doesn’t even get to the linebackers, the most significant being the pair from Illinois, Kevin Hardy and Simeon Rice (how bad a coach must Lou Tepper be if two of his players are drafted in the top 5?).
Conscience, no other reason, would have to drop Phillips all the way to the Bears, but if that happens the NFL actually would be making a statement that Nebraska and college football wouldn’t, that conduct does matter.
It happens with drug suspicions all the time. Last year Warren Sapp of Miami fell from possibly the top choice all the way to Tampa Bay. Similar concerns made Dan Marino the 27th player and sixth quarterback taken in the famed class of 1983.
Phillips’ flaws are not rumors. They are a matter of court record. But any team that passes on Phillips will have to choose decency over appetite. What if, as is possible, Phillips turns out to be the next Emmitt Smith or Thurman Thomas?
I’m afraid the NFL has no measurement on its stop watches for character. My guess is the Jets take Phillips first and justify later.
As for the Bears, I am reluctant to project their draft selections since, two years ago, I concluded in advance that they would pick Thierry in the first round, a guess only slightly wilder than if I had said out loud last year the name of Todd Sauerbrun.
So, when I say, Rickey Dudley, Ohio State tight end, I’m mostly kidding.
