Give me your violent, your crazy, your recidivist bastards yearning to make it to February

I apologize to the mourners for interrupting the Sonics-related sad sackery, but there are important, uplifting, burning Seattle sports issues to discuss: namely, the upcoming football season and one solid idea for making our football team not suck this year. And no, I don’t mean the Huskies – I have no idea how to make them stop sucking. I am talking about the Seahawks, the gridiron's nicest guys and former home of the chubbiest star running back since the Bus left Steeltown.

I know it’s hard to get excited about football while the weather’s still warm and the sun’s still shining during dinner. But for me, every year at about this time, I can feel excitement start to build about the coming of fall. Part of this excitement is, no doubt, the proximity of crisp, clear days and the new-school-year optimism embedded deep in my lizard brain. But a big part of the excitement is the approach of a new football season, so filled with nervousness and anticipation back in the Pop Warner days, and now brimming with the promise of drinking beer at 10 o’clock on Sunday mornings and watching Lofa Tatupu punish any running back with the temerity to run between the tackles.

Last year was a bit of a disappointment. Not as much for me as for a friend who picked Shaun Alexander first in his fantasy draft, but neverthless a disappointment to watch so much talent being squandered. But this year, I’ve got hopes. And I’ve got one solid idea for how we can turn our guys into the Emerald City marauders we need to be to make it to the big game.

We need more criminals.

That’s right. It’s no secret that some teams have achieved great success by keeping known felons in their ranks. Indeed, the examples of excellent individual acquisitions are too many to catalog here. But perhaps no team has utilized the criminally-inclined more effectively than America’s Team: the Dallas Cowboys. And frankly, I’m sick of seeing Jerry Jones's band of rogues win at the expense of our guys in green, and I think it’s time we steal a page from their rap sheet.

But first, let’s look at some fish that got away:

Terry “Tank” Johnson, for example, has been a successful acquisition for America’s Team. Having been arrested numerous times on a variety of charges, including illegal firearm possession and assault of a police officer, Johnson was dropped by the Bears. Career over? No way. The Cowboys were more than happy to scoop him up and plant him in the middle of a very effective D Line. The kicker: as a former Husky, the Seahawks were in prime position to add Tank to their arsenal in the 2004 draft. Who did they pick instead? Marcus Tubbs, who in 2007 had no felonies and no sacks.

Adam “Pacman” Jones is perhaps the most brilliant, and most felonious, Cowboy acquisition in recent memory. Sure, he sat out the entire 2007 season for making it rain just a little too hard, but his return promises to be spectacular, and will give the Cowboys their first true lockdown corner since Neon Deion left to be co-host of the 700 Club. Just looking at the numbers, it’s clear that Seattle should have snapped him up on the cheap: even taking the 2007 goose egg into account, Pacman’s three-year career average of 1.33 interceptions and 38.33 tackles per season outguns the 1 interception and 35 tackles Kelly Jennings recorded in his first and only season as a Hawks’ corner.

And aside from those two criminally good acquisitions, the Cowboys have been just as effective at growing their own, so to speak. The roster of Cowboy outlaws is too long to go into detail: Nate Newton, Michael Irvin, Erik Williams, Hollywood Henderson . . . . We all know that Rae Carruth would be running patterns in Arlington if only he’d had Johnny Cochran as his lawyer.

So, where does that leave us nice guys? Perhaps we can score the former Bengals' WR Chris Henry, who, based on last season’s on and off field performances, promises to be very bad, and very good, in years to come. But who else is there that we can acquire? There must be someone, and we just need to be on the lookout. For example: he runs a 4.0 forty but gets in a fight every Friday night? Awesome; bail him out and suit him up in Seattle. He benches 225 forty-five times but has failed every drug test since the combines? Great! From your lock-up to our locker room, we’re happy to have him.

I think Paul Allen and crew just need to start scouring the police blotters for franchise talent. Hell, maybe with two or three more violent criminals, we could be America’s team.