ESPN's decided not to wait until the next "Outside the Lines" to reveal the details of its investigation of an alleged incident involving Pacman Jones in 2007. Courtesy of Awful Announcing, here's the crux of the report, which aired on SportsCenter this afternoon.

So we've got one guy alleging a death threat, and two of his friends backing up his story. That's better than nothing, I guess. But I still don't see anything in there that definitively says, yes, Pacman Jones is guilty of trying to have someone shot at. I see nothing close to that.

What I'd still like to know is why the investigation conducted by local authorities didn't turn up anything they felt warranted leveling a charge against Pacman.

First, consider Pacman's past and reputation. You'd think that any police department in the country would just be itching to throw charges at him, and that didn't happen here. Secondly, consider that this allegation is being made by a recently retired cop. Surely he's got friends on the

Sometime soon, Pacman Jones might get the rare pleasure of meeting a lawyer who is not working 'round the clock to keep him out of jail. It seems that Pacman didn't care for ESPN's report that he had arranged to have a man shot in an Atlanta nightclub in 2007, and he plans to sue.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Adam Jones is denying an ESPN report that he arranged for someone to shoot at three men outside a Atlanta night club.

In fact an angry Jones said he's planning legal action against the network.

"It will be a lawsuit in a week against ESPN," Jones said. "That's stupid. It's so stupid I have no more comments."

I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but my dream outcome for any potential Pacman Jones lawsuit against ESPN would be that ESPN agrees to air a special episode of "Outside the Lines" entitled "ESPN's sincere and heartfelt apology to the noble and kindhearted Adam 'Pacman' Jones, who has done absolutely nothing wrong."

ESPN's really put itself in a tight spot here. It went

I'll understand if you want to think that this gentleman with the "0-16" tattoo on his chest is a bit of a numbskull. The Dino's Pizza tattoo on his right arm certainly backs you up on that.

But I love the idea. If someday by some kind of divine miracle the Lions actually win a Super Bowl, this guy's going to be able to take his shirt off and say, "Yeah, I was there when they went 0-16, and I didn't abandon my team. It only strengthened my resolve to stick with my beloved Lions until they turned it around."

Is he delusional to think that one day that might actually happen? Maybe. But you can't accuse him of being disloyal.

As far as sports tattoos go, I think that's a worthwhile gesture. There certainly have been worse ideas.

It had been three weeks since you've been treated to a podcast, but with the holidays finally over, Danks and I got back in the saddle this week. Not the same saddle, mind you, we each had our own ... you know what I'm saying.

We spend time on each of the games coming up this weekend, and some of our picks may surprise you. We also discuss one of the most important, yet often-overlooked factors in the 2009 playoffs to this point ... Andy Reid's playoff beard.

From there, the mailbag is an absolute mess. We've got two regular callers, and out of all the people in the world who could be regular callers, I don't know how we ended up with these two.

Then we cap things off with "The Picks Segement," which is the segment where we make picks.

If you've got questions for next week's mailbag, pretty please call and leave a voicemail at(304) 933-4488.

You can listen right here:

Or download it right here:

Click to download. MP3, 17.6 MB, 38:25.

Yesterday afternoon, I heard that the Dallas Cowboys cut Pacman Jones. I was very mildly surprised, but figured if Pacman kept himself out of handcuffs between now and next season's training camp, that he'd get a chance somewhere else.

After all, he played some serviceable football with the Cowboys. He never got back to the dominant level he played at with Tennessee before the major suspension, but he was good enough that some team out there could use him. And presumably, with steady work, he can get maybe a little closer to the level he used to play at.

And then I heard some wild story from ESPN that Pacman's being accused of arranging to have a man shot. This is a new allegation, even though the incident took place back in 2007. This is not the Vegas incident everyone's heard about a thousand times. Here's the ESPN report.

Now, there are very few things Pacman Jones could be accused of that I wouldn't believe. If someone said this morning that Pacman bit the heads off of every Barbie

NationalFootballPost.com is reporting that Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford is also planning to enter the 2009 NFL Draft. Along with that Matt Stafford news from oh, about 10 minutes ago, this makes it a pretty good day for NFL teams looking for a quarterback in the 2009 Draft.

We quoted Todd McShay about Stafford, so let's do the same with Bradford. He currently projects the Detroit Lions, with the first pick overall, to take Bradford.

The Lions could have a tough choice here between Bradford and Georgia's Matthew Stafford. Bradford could use another year of experience and improved strength. There will also be concerns regarding his transition to the NFL from a shotgun-heavy offense at Oklahoma, where he is afforded the luxury of a first-class supporting cast. On the positive side, Bradford excels in the areas most critical to being a successful quarterback in the NFL: mental makeup, intangibles and accuracy.

Before the draft is over, you'll hear Bradford compared to Tom Brady at

Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Knowshon Moreno both declared themselves eligible for the 2009 Draft this afternoon.

Stafford and Moreno might excite you; they might not. But what's certainly exciting is that juniors are starting to declare, which means mock draft season is right around the corner. And who doesn't love a good mock draft?

Stafford probably loves them, as he figures pretty prominently in the early ones we've already seen. Most scouts really dig Stafford. He's ranked seventh overall in Scouts Inc.'s top 32. ESPN's Todd McShay has Stafford going third overall to the Kansas City Chiefs, and says this about him:

"He plays under center in something close to a pro-style offense at Georgia. He faced top competition in the SEC and did not have a great supporting cast around him. Stafford also has a rifle for an arm and is very accurate when is footwork is correct. His inconsistency and lapses in judgment are concerning, which is why we could have an

You know what I've found strange about every team in sports that's won a championship since around 2001? They have all been the victims of heaps upon heaps of disrespect. No one thought they could do it!

Imagine that. All these hundreds of champion athletes, and all these millions of fans, and never once did one fan think one athlete was capable of a championship. It's crazy! It's truly a statistical anomaly. Especially since there are only 30 or so teams per league, and one of them has to win the championship. You'd think at least one of these tens of millions of fans would catch on.

It's an odd coincidence, isn't it? That every championship team has also been demeaned by the public and the target of unprecedented insolence?

It could be a coincidence. Or it could also be that every single team in sports today somehow gets the notion that the world hates them. It's one of the two. I don't know.

As a fan, you might think you're doing important work to help your team by buying their