Perhaps I Should Have Seen This Coming

you linked and it still read like stupid, wannabe thug, armed robbery – which the stoned idiot driver of the get away car thought was funny. No doubt they will try to spin it, especially since the victims are big Vols fans and will willingly go along with whatever it takes to lessen the blow but if any of these kids ever dons a UT jersey then LK can NEVER talk about discipline again in his life.

If these punks aren’t kicked of the team by Kiffin then Slive better do it.

And I still don’t see how they don’t do jail time….

Who is that tiny guy with the red shirt in the bottom right of the photo?

your observations about the “criminal class” is epically on the mark.

I know you’re coming at this post from the criminal attorney perspective, and I imagine the players’ attorneys may follow a similar path. And given the victim’s attitude, I can’t see the three of them going down on full armed robbery charges.

But don’t forget that in the case of Jackson and Richardson you’re talking about guys who have already been in trouble with the program. The judgment that puts you out at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday of game week with a pot-toting woman, “gun” in the car, etc. after you’ve just come off suspension is pretty poor, and taking it from that to going up and pointing the gun in somebody’s face is just amazingly poor judgment.

Richardson and Edwards are in completely indefensible positions. To think you can take the action of pointing a gun at somebody’s head and demanding money and still enjoy the privilege of playing for Tennessee is beyond reason. Jackson can probably be saved given his apparent indirect role in all this. But just the fact that he would be out in this situation after serving a game suspension should be enough to keep him off the field for the rest of this season. For him it should be the loss of playing privilege for this season and getting him into Blount Mode, where he can demonstrate his willingness to do the work of school and football without the glory and see if he has the character to come out the other side and be a part of the team again.

Whether Jackson did such work or just bailed out for a fresh start would be the real indicator of his character.

Why pellet guns? Kiffen and Orgeron need to loosen up the purse strings so these guys can afford real guns.

In reading this account, one wonders if the football player who held the gun even intended it to be an actual robbery, or if he was just playing a late-teenage version of Cops And Robbers without realizing that if you do that at night at a convenience store, not everyone will realize you’re playing a game.

For full disclosure, Richard, I have to tell you that I prosecute for a living. I’ve probably heard the above statement, or one similar to it, about a million times at sentencings, so maybe I’m just a little callous. My point of view? It takes more than a “stupid decision” to “pretend” to put someone’s life in danger. If you’ve never been robbed, you probably can’t understand. This ain’t the wild west.

Now, as for Jackson, I agree with your assesment that the case does sounds spotty. I guess we’ll wait and see how his case is handled.

Why did he call the cops and tell them he got held up? UT money has been provided to this guy to change his tune.

I’m still left wondering why there’s a tiny man with a red shirt in this photo.

Good reads, for sure, and the courtesy extended to RTT by all of you was particularly appreciated.

Up here in Knox Vegas, the bones seem to say that Mike Edwards and Nu’Keese Richardson will be gone. Nobody knows about Janzen yet. I think everything for him hinges on his drug test (which I’m sure the university administered once he posted bail). But for JJ to be released on his own recognizance and to be represented by Bosch says a lot. The former came after the initial review of the incident, and only Jackson’s bond was reduced at all – much less to zero. The latter… Bosch is UT’s go-to attorney for players. He’s extremely well respected in the area and has a reputation for being very good, and he is usually only called on for tricky situations when the school really believes in a kid.

In the realm of pure speculation, I’d guess that JJ will sit the season and be back in the spring. He just had a whale of a scare and I think he’ll get a chance to show whether it was sufficient.

But out of the three of them, he clearly had the NFL in his future. My goodness, can he play.