Free Pros and Cons by Don Yaeger, Jeff Benedict Page A

beating was, Phillips went high. Coaches seemingly don’t view domestic violence as a distraction to a player’s on-field performance. And in their own way of thinking, they’re right. To date, there is no evidence that guys who beat their wives or girlfriends are any less capable of showing up on Sunday and beating their opponents.
    On the other hand, Dillon, whose record also includes a conviction for a violent incident involving an ex-girlfriend and a conviction for assaulting a woman, was linked to something that the NFL views as a far greater threat to its commercial reputation—drug dealing.
    During Dillon’s only season at the University of Washington,
Seattle Times
writer Percy Allen reported that Dillon got into “fights and mischief” as a juvenile, hardly the kind of thing that would scare off NFL teams. Allen’s article, nevertheless, also revealed that Dillon “once was arrested for selling narcotics.” However, the report did not specify what type of narcotics, nor did it indicate whether Dillon was ever convicted.
    After the Bengals selected Dillon, Allen’s article spurred Cincinnati reporters to question the team about Dillon’s past. “He did have the juvenile record,” Bengals first-year special teams coach Al Roberts told the
Cincinnati Post.
“He did not sell crack cocaine. That is poor information.”
    Roberts should know. Another Seattle native, Roberts was Dillon’s running backs coach at the University of Washington. Further, his son played against Dillon in high school. “I assumed the role of a surrogate father to Corey at Washington,” said Roberts in an exclusive interview. “I took him under my wing. Corey came in nice and soft, and he took me on as a dear friend or father figure. And he needed help and I needed to help him.”
    Within a week of Dillon announcing after his junior season that he was leaving school to enter the draft, Roberts likewise announced he was leaving the team. A seasoned NFL assistant coach who, prior to his brief stint with the Huskies, had coached in Philadelphia, Houston, Phoenix, and New York, Roberts accepted an offer from Bengals head coach Bruce Coslet to coach Cincinnati’s special teams. Roberts had previously coached under Coslet with the Jets.
    Once on staff, it was Roberts who convinced the Bengals to use their second-round pick on Dillon. “I did not think Corey would be available in the second round because he’s a big-time running back,” Roberts explained. “When our pick came up at forty-three, [Bengals team president] Mike Brown looked at me and I said, ‘Take him.’ He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Take him.’ We discussed all the other problems, I said, ‘Mike,
take him.’
And we took him. I didn’t think Mike was going to do what he did. He just handed it over and said, ‘Dillon. Washington.’”
    A respected coach with an uncanny interest in the off-the-field well-being of his players, Roberts took the lead role in downplaying to the Cincinnati press corps some of the charges levied against Dillon in the
Seattle Times
article.
    “I asked Roberts about the troubles Dillon had in the past,” explained
Cincinnati Post
writer Todd Archer in an interview for this book. “But Dillon had denied any of the drug stuff, and we didn’t push it too far.”
    After both Roberts and Dillon refuted the
Seattle Times
story, Archer, like the rest of the Cincinnati press, reported that Dillon’s past included “juvenile offenses.” Archer also wrote that, “Dillon told the
Times
he did not sell drugs.”
    So let’s get this straight: a Seattle writer reports a drug case in Dillon’s past; the Cincinnati writers catch wind of this and confront the Bengals about the report; and the Bengals go on record denying the charge. Simple enough. Case closed.
    Not so fast. In the same article where Roberts was quoted denying the drug charge, Archer also quoted him as saying: “When you look at Corey Dillon and the Bengals, this