Stephen A. Smith disgusted with Bengals cornerback Adam Jones

If you act a fool, Stephen A. Smith is coming after you.

Unfortunately for the Bengals, they’ve had a lot of tomfoolery over the past year, which has led to the ESPN commentator ripping the organization on a regular basis. Most of it has been (rightfully) directed at Marvin Lewis, but now, Smith is coming after one of Lewis’ reclamation projects.

Adam Jones has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, the latest being the arrest video in which he berates and threatens a police officer. Smith actually like Jones, but this was just an awful thing for the cornerback to let happen, especially as an NFL player.

“When you are an NFL player, and you’ve made millions, and you have access to tools that can help you fight the system in a way that others may not, then it’s incumbent upon you to recognize that and have more control, because you’re not as desolate and disenfranchised as others might be. You have the means to hire a lawyer. You have the means to have an attorney address the police in terms of their treatment towards you.”

Jones has hired a lawyer and this week for the first time since his January 3 arrest, they released a statement in response to the video that was released. It wasn’t a good statement, but it was a statement.

Smith goes on to praise Jones for how he’s cleaned up his act in recent years after being a problem child earlier in his NFL career, but a mistake like this wipes away all of that goodwill Jones has built up, and that infuriates Smith.

“After all of these years where he’s been clean and hasn’t gotten in any trouble, one incident has tarnished him and brought us all back to that point, and that’s why I’m disgusted, because I cannot believe after all the hard work he put in, that he’s allowed himself to be put in this position. I’m disgusted.”

I think that pretty much sums up how Bengals fans in general feel about Jones, who has come along way from the bad boy he was during his days in Tennessee and Dallas, but the video released this week and the charges against him from the January 3 incident make him look like he’s not changed at all, and that’s very disappointing.