Jamal Lewis addresses the press with coach Brian Billick looking on. Barry Williams/Getty Images

Running back. 2,000-Yard rusher. Pro Bowler. Jail bird. Ex-con. Bad guy.

It would be so easy to slam a label onto Jamal Lewis. It's what we do. Rather than embrace all the layers of an athlete's personality, the full measure of his life on the field and off, we cut corners and confine them to a corner because of a position or some quirky personality trait. We stereotype based on an aspect of his childhood, his attire or even his hairstyle. Even more critically, we decide just who he is -- good guy or bad guy -- based on a snapshot of behavior, usually taken at a man's low point ... a moment when he's most vulnerable.

It's what we do.

Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens' dynamic running back, thrilled us two seasons ago by nearly breaking the NFL's single-season rushing record -- he finished with 2,066 yards -- just 39 yards shy of Eric Dickerson's 20-year-old mark. But last week those images were eclipsed by footage of Lewis walking stone-jawed out of a Florida federal prison after serving four months for youthful stupidity.

The official charge that led to Lewis' incarceration was using a cell phone to buy drugs. Lewis did the deed nearly five summers ago. Lewis and a childhood "friend" were originally charged with conspiring to intentionally possess and distribute cocaine. Last fall, prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against Lewis if he pled guilty to the lesser charge of using a cell phone to broker a drug deal -- still a federal offense.

So now, Jamal Lewis is an ex-con. No avoiding that label. It was earned. It's real. And it's now part of what shapes him. But after watching images of Lewis on the day following his release, square-on answering questions about his time behind bars, his mistakes and his future, I'm here to say Jamal Lewis should from this day on be labeled as nothing more (or less) than, well, Jamal Lewis.

What he did in 2000 was dumb. What he did last Friday was revelatory. Rather than claim he was targeted because of his visibility as an athlete ... rather than blame a challenged childhood, rather than play the "race card" and rage that his only crime was being a black man in America, Lewis said this: "I don't think I'm a victim. I stood up for what I did and everything, and I did my time. I don't have any bitter feelings towards the government and I don't have any bitter feelings towards the prosecutors or anything. They gave me my time. I did what I did, and I stood up for what I did, and I took responsibility for my own actions. I'm the only one accountable for that, and I've done it."

Brian Billick, the Ravens head coach, who was sitting nearby, said he was "excited" about the prospect of Lewis "sharing his story" with teammates. "Because we have a lot of young players that find themselves in situations, if not exactly like Jamal's ... You never learn more than from your own mistakes."

Watching Lewis -- he was polite, introspective, clearly humbled -- prompted me to think of another Lewis, Jamal's teammate Ray Lewis. Around the same time Jamal was making his fated telephone call, Ray was standing in an Atlanta courtroom pleading guilty to obstruction charges in a double-murder case, a deal that allowed him to trade one very notorious and frightening label ("murder defendant" ) for one no less troubling yet much more benign ("prosecution witness.").

Ray and two "close friends" had been charged in the stabbing deaths of two men during that January's Super Bowl weekend in Atlanta. But the prosecution's case against him was weak, so they offered to drop the charges in exchange for an obstruction plea. Under Georgia's First Offender Act, Lewis received one-year probation, after which his record would expunged. Like it never happened.

The jury of public opinion wasn't so lenient. The ferocious linebacker led the Ravens to victory in the 2001 Super Bowl in one of the most dominating performances ever, but while other teammates went to Disneyland and graced Wheaties boxes, Ray Lewis remained in popularity purgatory, labeled by that night in Georgia. Even around here, it took a couple of years before any mention of his name didn't prompt the kind of heavy silence that screamed "bad guy."

Ray Lewis has finally shed the label, long after he should have.

Jamal Lewis, the son of a corrections employee, was less than 24 hours from sharing a "cube" with 12 other inmates and six bunks, being awaken daily at 4:30 a.m. and a job "handing out tools" to other inmates when he sat before us a smarter man ("Pick your friends wisely," was his advice to the young), but not necessarily a changed one. "I think I've always been a good person," he said that day. "I think my character's been good. But at the same time I had a chance to sit back and ... really spend time with myself [rather than] worrying about everyone else around me."

One conclusion? "The only thing you have is your name. It might have been tarnished a bit. ... It comes with the territory. It's something I just put behind me and move on with my future. ... I am who I am, and that's it."

Lewis will spend another two months at a halfway facility in Atlanta. He'll rehab his injured ankle the best he can. And if he's fortunate, a judge will allow him to attend the Ravens' minicamps, which take place before his stint concludes.

Billick called Friday's press conference "the defining line" for his team regarding Jamal Lewis, saying from that day on his star would not be solely defined by the mistake that cost him four months' freedom.

It should be our defining line as well.