As hard as it is to say, Pacman punishment is wr ... wr ... wrong

Get over your glee.

There's a word for your glee, and it's a word I've never used before and after today probably won't use again. It's a high-falutin' word, and I'm not one to substitute a thesaurus for actual writing, but the word works like no other to describe the most recent twist of fate regarding Pacman Jones:

Schadenfreude.

It's a German word that means, basically, the mass glee people feel when someone else is brought down.

Roger Goodell: Fool me once, Pacman Jones, then ... well, you're suspended again. (US Presswire)

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell just brought down Pacman Jones. We feel mass glee. It's schadenfreude.

And it's absolutely embarrassing.

Get over your glee, as I said, and look at this objectively. I know, I know -- there is no objectivity when it comes to Pacman Jones, and he has only himself to blame. Pacman has been a serial idiot, a criminal and a bully and an utter waste of oxygen since he got to the NFL. He was a serial idiot at West Virginia, too. He's a bad guy. I know it. You know it. So when he gets brought down, as Roger Goodell brought him down this week ... schadenfreude.

Mass glee.

But it's wrong. Roger Goodell was wrong then. You're wrong now. The whole thing is wrong, and I'm a little unnerved at having to be the one to point this out. Defending Pacman Jones is not a wise career move. He's a moron and worse, a dangerous human being. If he moved in next door, I'd move out. That's no joke.

Some day, someone is going to die around Pacman Jones. I'm not saying he'll be the killer, or the cause. But he'll be in the vicinity. Somehow he'll be around. Because he's a s--- magnet, and not just for himself. Everyone around him gets splattered.

But this penalty by Roger Goodell ...

This stinks.

This stinks on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. The visceral reaction was overwhelmingly in his favor, but intellectually speaking Roger Goodell is defenseless here, vulnerable, and that's strange because Goodell has been the best thing to happen to the NFL since Earl Campbell. When Goodell sees a problem, he doesn't tiptoe out of bounds like Paul Tagliabue. Not Roger Goodell. He lowers his head and runs the problem over. Players get suspended. Owners get chastised. Referees get reprimanded. I love me some Roger Goodell.

But I don't love this.

What he did to Pacman Jones smacks of a rush to judgment, of double-jeopardy, of abject cruelty. He pandered to the public, inviting one and all to enjoy some schadenfreude at Pacman Jones' expense.

Pacman has been held to an impossible standard, worse than the one that brought down Bob Knight. After being warned not to screw up again as the Indiana basketball coach, Knight put his hands on an Indiana student. Sorry, Knight. You're gone.

Pacman apparently placed his hands on a bodyguard. His bodyguard. A goon hired by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to watch Pacman. They got into some sort of altercation in a hotel bathroom, and police were called, but no charges were filed. If damage was done to the hotel, we don't know about it. If anybody was injured, we don't know about it. Basically, Pacman and his Cowboys-bought bodyguard got physical, and for that, Goodell suspended Jones for at least four games. Maybe more. He'll revisit the issue in a month, when he wants some more positive press.

Backed into a corner by Goodell, Pacman is playing the only card available to him. He is entering treatment for alcohol abuse, according to the Dallas Morning News. The reaction to that news will be overwhelming: Pacman's a drunk! See! Goodell had to suspend him four games!

And that reaction, like everything else about these latest twists, will be overdone. Pacman never had a drinking clause. His prior suspension wasn't about alcohol, so he hasn't violated it by drinking. Which means he can't be suspended now for getting drunk.

And that leaves us back where we started. With Goodell making an easy stand against an easy target, counting on all of us to judge him with our hearts, not our minds. Because in our heart, we hate Pacman. Hell, I'm with you there. He's an idiot. Getting into a tussle with your bodyguard -- needing a bodyguard to protect you from yourself -- is embarrassing and stupid. Clearly Pacman Jones is a disaster waiting to happen.

But this wasn't it.

This wasn't a disaster. Nor was this a crime worthy of a quarter-season suspension and pay cut. Not even for someone with Pacman Jones' track record.

Goodell's suspension of Pacman Jones smacks of piling on, of punishing him again for all those misdeeds -- alleged and real -- that led to his 17-month suspension in the first place. Goodell lifted that suspension roughly six weeks ago, and now this. Now Pacman gets into more trouble. And so Goodell came down hard on him, hitting this fly with a hammer when it would have been sufficient to shoo the fly out the open window.

A one-game suspension, a reminder to Pacman to mind his business at all times off the field, would have been punitive and fair. A four-game suspension, at a minimum? That's punitive, all right. But not fair. Not for this.

If Goodell wanted to be done with Pacman after all those arrests when Jones was at Tennessee -- including a still-unclear incident in Las Vegas in which Pacman was probably involved and a man was definitely paralyzed -- then Goodell should have done it then. Expel him from the league. Banish him.

But Goodell didn't do that. He let Pacman back, and six weeks later Pacman embarrassed him. So Goodell retaliated. Goodell retaliated, and we cheered. Look at Pacman! What a loser. A big glass of schadenfreude for everyone.

Just don't choke on it.