Free Pros and Cons by Don Yaeger, Jeff Benedict

up on the court’s computerized records.
    Francies-Siedow later discovered the case while searching, with the assistance of a court records clerk, through files that had been archived. “It’s conceivable that we are only scratching the surface when turning up these cases involving NFL players,” explained Francies-Siedow. “If you’re a criminal in L.A., and clearly some of these players were, there’s a good chance that there’s little record of it if the case is more than five years old. There are simply too many crimes and too little storage space for keeping old records at the courthouses. So a lot of records are purged after five years. The rest is put on microfiche and those records are incomplete and sparse at best.”
    I n an attempt to see just how far teams will go to overlook a player’s juvenile criminal record, the authors went north to Seattle. Since Washington state law allows public access to juvenile criminal case files, the authors selected Seattle native Corey Dillon, a second-round draft choice in 1997 and the AFC Rookie of the Year, as a case study. Our discoveries convinced us that if the Corey Dillon case is any indication: 1) the popular press is barely scratching the surface in reporting on the criminal backgrounds of players who are entering the NFL, and 2) NFL teams are severely minimizing the prior bad acts of players when explaining their draft choices to the press and the fans.
    Cinergy Field, Cincinnati, Ohio, December 4, 1997
    “Corey … Corey … Corey,” 49,000 Bengals fans cheered with two minutes remaining and Cincinnati leading the Oilers, 41–14. Boomer Esiason handed the ball off to rookie running back Corey Dillon, who plowed for ten yards, breaking Jim Brown’s 1957 rookie record for yards rushed in a game. Most fans watching the game on TNT had never heard of Corey Dillon. Few would forget how he rumbled over the Oilers’ third-ranked defense for 246 yards on thirty-nine carries and scored four touchdowns, breaking or tying six Bengals team records.
    While Dillon’s “coming out” performance dazzled those who witnessed it, the Bengals’ brass were well aware of their rookie back’s capabilities. In Dillon’s only season of Division I-A football at the University of Washington, he broke school records in rushing yards (1,555), carries (271), touchdowns (23), all-purpose yards (2,185), and scoring (138 points)—
and he started only eight games.
    Knowing this, Cincinnati almost took him in the first round. When he was still on the board when their second-round pick came up, Bengals management knew they had a steal. Originally slated to back up Ki-Jana Carter, the first pick overall in the 1995 draft, Dillon had earned the starting position halfway through his rookie season. He finished the year with 1,129 yards rushing on 233 carries and scored ten touchdowns. Impressive statistics by anyone’s standards, Dillon’s numbers were largely compiled in the second half of the year. After carrying the ball only forty times through the first eight regular-season games, Dillon piled up 933 rushing yards in his final eight starts.
    NFL scouts who saw Dillon run at the University of Washington had little doubt that he was a big-time player. With such remarkable potential, the question was how such a gifted runner was still available at the forty-third pick. Answer: he had a long and distinguished criminal record.
    Given that Lawrence Phillips was picked sixth overall despite a far more notorious criminal background, there’s obviously more to the story, however. Especially since Dillon’s past transgressions, unlike Phillips’s, were hardly known to the press.
    While a prior history of crime will not prevent a player from getting drafted, certain types of offenses more than others may affect
where
in the draft a player is picked. Such was the case with Phillips and Dillon.
    While in college, Phillips had pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Savage as the