So, over the last year of doing this “column,” I have bitched on numerous occasions in the past about how desolate and bereft of Crime News I Can Use the off-season can be. But like the Monkey’s Paw or online dating, one should be wary of that for what one wishes.

Last Friday damn near ruptured me, such was the glut of Football Related Shenanigans. I thought that I would at least have the chance to my literary breath. Free agency hasn’t opened. It’s more than a week before the Combine, the usual time for prospects to get arrested, busted for pot or find a spiritual guru. Plus, it was President’s Day, that most solemn and dignified of three-day weekends.

But no! This machine, this beautiful thing? It runs on #content, and the Great Magnet has seen fit to shower it down upon us like a couple of high-priced Russian hookers. What a fool I was to defy Him…

Due to circumstances beyond my control (arraignment of 30+ involved in alleged people-smuggling ring), I’m going to split this week’s column into two smaller pieces. Piecelets. Nuggets, if you will.

BRING FORTH THE ACCUSED!

STANLEY WILSON II

CHARGE: Naked Housebreaking, Recidivist Offender

Wow. Sometimes the stories just write themselves. Former Detroit Lion and Stanford Tree Thing Stanley Wilson II was arrested about 30 miles outside Portland, Oregon for allegedly trying to break into a house while nude. Wilson, who played cornerback for the Lions during the 2005-2008  Late Millen Extinction, drove up in front of the residence in Woodburn around 2 p.m. and approached the homeowner as he or she was in the open garage. The homeowner reported that Wilson made alarming statements and was “acting erratically,” so he or she closed the garage door and called the police while Wilson attempted to get in the front and back doors. When the cops arrived, Wilson “emerged from a backyard shed, naked.” He was cooperative with officers and was taken into custody.

Now, normally this would have been a bit of a misleadingly click-bait charge/headline. After all, the reports seem to indicate that he was fully clothed while attempting to enter the house, and that he only got nekkid after Plan A went sideways. However, this isn’t Wilson’s first bareback rodeo. Wilson was sentenced to 10 days in jail for allegedly trying to burgle a home in southwest Portland last June. In that instance, police found him in a water fountain in the back yard, nude and gut-shot by the homeowner. Then about a month ago, he was arrested after a disturbing-the-peace call because he was running around outside someone else’s  house- again, completely nude.

Wilsons’s father was Cincinnati Bengals fullback Stanley Wilson, who The Elders on this site may remember as one of the precursor examples of the Eugene Robinson Pre-Super Bowl Fuckup, the concept that has launched a thousand HE”S SELFISH AND IS A DISRACTION AND WARARARARARARA! sports radio Taeks.

You see, children: once upon a time, long long ago in the dark mists of history, before the invention of the Internet, before the Earth cooled from a lava-soaked ball of fire, even before Marvin Lewis was hired, the Bengals were not limited to the binary outcomes of “Joke of the League” or “First Round Playoff Loss”. Hell, despite having mental midgets  Norman Julius “Boomer” Esiason and Cris “Fellatio” Collinsworth as leaders of the team, they made it to Super Bowl XXIII. Most of America remembers that game for  the 49ers’ 92-yard final drive, culminating in Joe Montana hitting John Taylor for the go-ahead touchdown with a little over 30 seconds left.

For Bengals fans, however, they remember Stanley Wilson. The night before the game, Stanley went to his hotel room just before the final team meeting to “get his playbook”. Twenty minutes later, his position coach found him in the bathroom Riding the White Tiger. He was left off the roster for the game the next day, and rumor has it that former Bengals coach Sam Wyche still blames him for the loss. This is Demonstrably False, as Esiason played a putrid game, then-rookie Ickey Woods was the sole bright spot on offense, and Jerry Rice had nearly as much receiving yardage (215) as the Bengals had total offense (229). Also, the Bengals had no one but themselves to blame- Wilson had previously missed two full seasons due to suspensions for cocaine, and was banned for life due to this third infraction. And you thought The Rog was a fascistic thug. I mean, he is, but he’s not the only one. He just gets better paid for it than most others.

And just to bring the story full circle, Wilson Sr. is currently serving a 22 year sentence for….breaking and entering.

TUNE IN FOR PART II: THE NEXT BIT

And as always, Foxboro Delenda Est.

*EDIT*: I have been informed by an attorney who shall remain nameless that the phrase “Riding the White Tiger” means something completely different than a Cincinnati/LSU/Detroit player getting high on cocaine. I would like to formally apologize to Siegfried and/or Roy for the misunderstanding.