NFL, players union offer lip service to conduct issue

	Despite advertising the union's concern, union president Gene Upshaw has shown less concern over Pacman Jones than a felon. AP

Gene Upshaw positively cooed Monday when he talked about how fabulously disgusted NFL players were with their fellow problem children. He raved that it was the players who proposed a "three-strikes-and-out" rule, and he gushed, "what's amazing about these guys is that they are very, very concerned about all of this."

Yeah, OK. Let's tell it like it is. This past year, a drug dealer showed more concern over the path Adam (Pacman) Jones -- today's biggest problem child -- was headed down than Upshaw, than anyone in his players association, or than any NFL exec. Upshaw can make a smiley face and he can snag some headlines, but right now, this three-strikes talk reads like a smokescreen. And a whole lot of hooey.

I'll give Upshaw that last week's meeting at the combine was a start. After over 50 NFL arrests in a little more than a year (and that's not counting repeat offenders!), getting commish Roger Goodell, the players on the league's conduct advisory committee and Cincinnati coach-slash-warden Marvin Lewis brainstorming was good. It's just that while Upshaw and his buddies were discussing damage control, Nashville's Channel 5 uncovered a man who'd worried over damage prevention.

That would be Daryl Moore, convicted felon and center of one of Nashville Metro Police's biggest drug busts ever. He was caught in a March 2006 sting that netted 2,000 pounds of drugs and 20 cars (including an Escalade linked to Pacman), but before that, Moore was caught fretting about the Titans corner.

"We gotta get him focused on football, man. He's focused on too much other s---," Moore says on a surveillance tape. He worries about Jones' disinterest in a drug test and then on another tape, he moans, "he ain't taking his ----- job serious."

The dude's a drug dealer! And yet there he was, mortified that if he didn't straighten Jones out, no one would. After all, "Fisher gotta win," Moore's heard saying. "Fisher trying to win," he says, resignedly acknowledging Titans coach Jeff Fisher can't play baby-sitter. And why "three strikes" isn't worth Upshaw's raptures.