Monday, August 24, 2009
To Aqib Talib,
One question. Have you lost your damn mind?
Before you were selected 20th overall by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2008 NFL Draft, your school – our school – hadn’t had a first-round draft pick since Dana Stubblefield 15 years before.
Furthermore, you are more than just a first-round draft pick. You hold the potential to display your college’s – our college’s – resurgence as a football program on an even bigger stage. You can be the first player from the Mangino Era to consistently make a mark on Sundays.
Just last year I watched you tie Ronde Barber to lead the Buccaneers in interceptions … as a rookie.
Nineteen months ago, I watched you return an interception 60 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter of the 2008 Orange Bowl. A game you probably recall fondly as your team won its first BCS game. You were the MVP.
Alas, with your arrest last week for punching your cab driver in Tampa, Fla. and resisting arrest, you’ve now committed three transgressions as a professional football player. Since you’ve left campus, there’s been little about your demeanor that one could deem professional.
So again I ask, have you lost your damn mind? Are you so disconnected with reality that you haven’t noticed how your commissioner treats repeat offenders like yourself?
Sure, you haven’t yet popped yourself in the leg with a firearm. You haven’t yet allowed your boys to coax you into staging underground animal combat rings. You haven’t yet mowed down a pedestrian while driving home after a night of burning herb and getting sauced.
But let’s be real here. Are you really far off from that? You can’t possibly be aware that these repeat offenses add up over time and become far more devastating. But they do. Keep at it and you too can gain media coverage from outlets that shouldn’t have to write about you in the first place.
Three positive marijuana tests at Kansas. Rolling with a former teammate who runs over a man allegedly pointing a gun at you two at a Lawrence club. Fighting a former Tampa teammate at the NFL’s rookie symposium. Busting open another Tampa teammate after a helmet you threw at another teammate struck him. Now this. You probably don’t see where this is all going, but many of us do.
You obviously have trouble controlling your chemicals. And hey, you’re 23, why not have a good time every now and then? Just Google Todd Reesing and you’ll find no shortage of booze-infused escapades. Difference is, he’s been able to balance work and play.
My horse is not high by any stretch. I imbibe across the spectrum from the lightest wheats to the darkest porters. And don’t get me started on tequila — I could write a book.
I’m just trying to say that when you were drafted in the first round last year we were proud of you. Now you’re blowing it.
I’m just trying to say it’s not too late to change … yet.
— —Edited by Amanda Thompson
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Comments
Montemayor: Aqib Talib has lost it
Someone should give the guy some credit.
It was alledgedly an unofficial team event, an evening out paid for by the rookies, and they took a cab home.
No one is reporting on what motivated Talib to punch the guy. Drunk or not, I don't see him punching the guy without some provocation. Thought I heard one place that the cabbie can lock the doors from the front if you don't pay what they harge you. Hmmm, what would I do if I was being held captive?
That being said, how much was the cabbie trying to fleece you for? Hopefully not nearly as much as the inconvenience of being booked, posting bail, attorney's fees, ... There are better battles to fight/that are worth winning.
The "resisting arrest" somehow loses the "non-aggressive" qualifier, so that he is lumped into the category with the guys that attack the police. Talib passively resisted - stayed sitting when they told him to move, so my guess is that's one that will be tossed out.
I'm not seeing it being nearly as bad has it is getting hyped by the media, tho it does continue a less than stellar string of decisions.
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