Adam Jones’ court case on hold until February

Following his early January arrest, the court case for Bengals cornerback Adam Jones has been placed on hold until February 10, 2017.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters would like the NFL to act first in handing down a punishment for Jones, before the legal system plays out and Jones receives a verdict from the court.

This is quite an unusual series of events as the NFL has almost always waited for the legal system to play out before issuing a punishment of its own.

Jones is facing misdemeanor charges of assault, disorderly conduct and obstructing official business, and a felony count of harassment with a bodily substance, which occurred while he was in custody. The felony associated with his arrest came due to spitting on the hand of a jail nurse while he was being booked. Some reports say he also spit on another jail employee. Jones spent more than 24 hours in jail before taking a DNA test and being released on $37,500 in bonds.

Jones’ arrest occurred at the Millennium Hotel in downtown Cincinnati on January 3, 2017. It was Jones' 10th arrest since joining the league and fourth since being signed by the Bengals in 2010.

"One of the factors that goes into my decision is what the NFL’s going to do to him,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said via the Cincinnati Enquirer last week. "If he gets suspended for four games, he loses $2 million. We have drunken idiots every night over at the (jail) that don't get fined $2 million."

When he was released from jail, Jones seemed convinced the charges would be dismissed and that his arrest didn’t make sense.

"I'll let everything play out in court," Jones said upon his release. "Obviously, if you read into it, none of this makes sense. For touching a guy like this (Jones lightly touched a reporter), I got arrested. We’ll see how it goes, and I’m more than eager that this will be dismissed pretty soon.”

Per court documents, Jones has hired Alex Triantafilou and Timothy Schneider to represent him. Triantafilou’s Twitter bio includes “Bengals fan” in the description, so hopefully he’ll be in good hands.