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The Cincinnati Bengals will open their 2017 campaign with a home game against the Baltimore Ravens, and they will have to do so without cornerback/return specialist Adam "Pacman" Jones.
NFL notified Bengals' DB Adam Jones he is being suspended for first regular season game for violating league’s Personal Conduct Policy.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 21, 2017
This stems from a January incident in which Jones got into an altercation with law enforcement, which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for in May.
The NFL elaborated on their decision to suspend Jones in a clarifying statement:
"[The] extensive video documentation of the tone, tenor and nature of your interactions with law enforcement at the site of your arrest, during transportation to the jail, and during the booking process. As you acknowledged, your post-arrest words and actions reflected poorly on you and your family, the Cincinnati Bengals football club, and the NFL. While it is our understanding that appropriate apologies have been publicly extended, they do not completely negate your behavior and admission of culpability for the underlying conduct."Jones will be granted the right to appeal the suspsension, but according to what the Bengals organization is saying, it doesn’t sound like the route he plans to take. In a statement they released, they made it clear that they anticipated this result, and are already moving on from the situation and looking ahead to training camp opening up soon.
While Jones certainly isn’t the star defender that he once was, he can very much still have an impact. As such, this is good news for a Ravens team that will likely be working out the kinks in their passing game at the start of the season. Jones being out of the lineup only bodes well for the debut of Jeremy Maclin as well as the first year where Mike Wallace and Breshad Perriman will be in charge of manning the perimeter.