Bad guys OK; they just can't be the wrong ones

Jerry Angelo is being hammered for populating the Bears' roster with bad guys like Cedric Benson.

This stirs memories of a conversation I had while working in Rockford during the 1970s.

I was talking with a Hall of Fame high school basketball coach. He was a tall, regal, silver-haired man who looked like an evangelist sitting on the bench in a business suit.

"I have never had criminals on my teams," he said.

A pause followed. He knew I was thinking of a dubious character he coached on a team that qualified for the Elite Eight in the early 1960s.

"Even (name withheld)," the coach said. "He was a criminal, but he was a good criminal."

Folks, fast, get this man a job in the NFL.

Angelo's crime isn't that he adds the occasional bad guy to the Bears' roster. It's that Benson was the wrong bad guy.

Meaning he became a player who made it harder to win with.

If you're going to have a criminal on your team, make sure he's a good criminal. That way he might be an achiever at everything, including football.

Seriously, no NFL team is comprised totally of church-going, law-abiding, society-respecting solid citizens.

There are going to be the Bensons, whom the Bears waived Monday after two recent alcohol-related arrests.

There also are going to be the Pacman Joneses, Tank Johnsons, Ray Lewises and Ricky Mannings, all of whom have had brushes with the law.

(If I'm not mistaken, except for Benson so far, each currently has a team willing to employ him, most notably though not exclusively the Dallas Cowboys.)

Anyway, the Ravens won a Super Bowl with Lewis. The Bears went to one with Benson and Manning. The Cowboys hope to with Jones and Johnson.

Since it's unrealistic for a team to have no criminals -- former, present or future -- the goal must be to have good criminals. Those are the ones who don't allow their bad activities to compromise football activities.

Benson's athletic crime was that his off-field transgressions were beginning to interfere with the Bears' on-field aspirations.

If Benson suffered a dozen arrests, served his time and was considered capable of gaining 1,500 yards a season … well, a good guess is he still would be a Bears running back.

But Benson became "bad" by failing to break tackles, being a questionable influence in the locker room, and distracting the Bears from trying to play championship football.

At rookie camp in May, coaches and players had to answer questions about a Benson arrest. At Bears Expo over the weekend, Angelo had to answer questions about another Benson arrest.

Even without being convicted of anything yet, Benson became a "bad criminal" for getting in the way of football at Halas Hall.

The Bears aren't a good enough team to be disturbed while working toward Sept. 7's opening game at Indianapolis.

More significant, Benson hasn't been a good enough football player for his legal entanglements to be tolerated.

As I always say, O.J. Simpson would be playing in the NFL today if he were in his prime and out of jail.

As that wise, old high school basketball evangelist indicated, sports have "good criminals" and "bad criminals."

Jerry Angelo is being hammered because Benson behavior and play conspired to turn him into the latter.

mimrem@dailyherald.com