Wroten F's up

By now, it's old news that DT Claude Wroten was arrested last week
for kicking in the door of his (ex-)girlfriend's apartment, a misdemeanor to
join last year's marijuana possession charge that knocked him down two
rounds in the draft. If he's found guilty of the charge of destruction of
property, I fully expect him to get a 4-week suspension from Roger
Goodell along with whatever niceties he has coming from Louisiana's
judicial system.

Goodell should suspend Wroten if he's found guilty. He'd deserve it. This
isn't his first run-in with the law recently. And the NFL cannot tolerate
an image of its players physically intimidating women. Claude's a hair-drag
down the stairs short of being Lawrence Phillips right now, and even though
he's short of that distasteful distinction, he's still the knucklehead he was
when the Rams drafted him.

That's the chance the Rams took drafting a knucklehead, and they pumped
up the risk this offseason by planning to rely on Wroten a lot more in the
DT rotation. Now, even if Wroten gets off without a suspension, the Rams
are going to have to get a plan B, or better, in place so they can tolerate
his next inevitable screwup. They're probably pumping their fists in Carolina;
Kris Jenkins' plummeting trade price probably is on the way back up.

Thanks, Claude.

Add in Dominique Byrd's December bar fight and March DUI, and it hasn't
been a sterling off-season for the third round of the Rams' 2006 draft class.
Byrd's actions are exactly the kind that make NFL players look bad, exactly
the kind of thing Goodell intends to drop the hammer on. (Wroten's actions,
too, for that matter.) He also seems at risk of some kind of league suspension,
and deserves such if he's found guilty. The thing with Byrd is, (huh, my
Pandora.com's playing "Tush" right now), he's a lot more expendable than
Wroten is at DT because of the acquisition of Randy McMichael, and he
could just get cut.

Character still counts, and it'd behoove the Rams to (re-)remember that
on future draft days.