This involved showering the cavorting ladies with over $80,000 in used notes. So far, so cliched rap video. When one of the event's promoters subsequently began picking up the cash and stuffing it into a rubbish bag, Jones took umbrage and all hell broke loose. After the dust had settled, a club employee named Tommy Urbanski was paralysed for life by gunshots . . . and a little-known NFL corner-back suddenly gained a large measure of national infamy.

On Wednesday, the Clark County prosecutor in Nevada filed two charges of felony coercion against Jones amid allegations he threatened to kill several people and bit one bouncer on the ankle during the fracas about ownership of his money. Of course, an NFL player being embroiled in an unsavoury incident in a gentleman's club, even one for which he might do 12 years in state prison, is hardly news.

American professional athletes spend such an inordinate amount of their spare time in these establishments that nobody batted an eyelid when it emerged a while back that a certain Boston Red Sock used to drive all the way to Providence after games because the strip clubs there were more liberal than their Massachusetts' equivalents.

The thing is though the Vegas episode was the 10th occasion police had reason to interview Jones in the past two years.

Five of those conversations culminated in him being arrested and two cases were still outstanding when he arrived in Sin City for the NBA All-Star festivities. This is why NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended the 23-yearold without pay for the entire 2007 season. Forty-four years have passed since a player was made to sit out an entire campaign and that was for gambling offences. Jones was done for violating the league's personal conduct policy.

"Your conduct has brought embarrassment and ridicule upon yourself, your club and the NFL and has damaged the reputation of players throughout the league, " wrote Goodell in an open letter to Jones. "You have put in jeopardy an otherwise-promising NFL career and have risked both your own safety and the safety of others through your offfield actions. In each of these respects, you have engaged in conduct detrimental to the NFL and failed to live up to the standards expected of NFL players."

After initially toying with the idea of appealing the penalty . . . his lawyer was arguing with some legitimacy that since 283 of Jones' peers have been arrested in the past seven years his client didn't deserve to be treated so harshly . . . he eventually decided to take his medicine. Not only that, the man . . . who was raised by his grandmother after his father was shot dead and his mother imprisoned - sounded suitably contrite about his past and determined to do something about his future. Commentators began speculating that the league might actually reinstate him after just 10 games if he kept out of bother in the meantime.

"I understand my responsibilities to my teammates, the Titans and my fans and I am committed to turning my life around and being a positive member of the NFL, " said Jones.

"Last week, I asked for an opportunity to meet privately with commissioner Goodell.

I met with him earlier today to tell him about the steps I have taken to change my life since being suspended by the NFL. It was the people I was hanging around. I made some bad decisions. I am not living a lie. I promise you that I am on the right track, but I have made horrible decisions about who I am with or who I am going places with."

During his meeting with Goodell at the league's Park Avenue offices, Jones spoke sincerely of the steps he was taking to reform his lifestyle. He talked of imposing curfews on himself and the obvious wisdom of avoiding the sort of nightspots where bad things can happen.

Unfortunately, before even entering the room, Goodell had been tipped off that Jones had spent the previous night at a New York strip club, obviously his preferred method of relaxation in the hours before a stressful showdown with the head of the sport. Luckily, he told the truth when the commissioner asked him when he'd last visited that sort of venue.

Barring a speeding ticket in Georgia and a failure to turn up at a mandated counselling session, the Titan managed to stay out of the news for all of two months. Last Monday morning, however, he and his entourage took their apparent nationwide tour of strip joints to his native Atlanta where, in remarkably similar circumstances, more trouble ensued in the small hours. Although there was no attempt by the player to make it rain this time out, it appears he and his crew got into a fight with another group about a dancer at Club Blaze.

The argument ended up outside and culminated in somebody from Jones' posse firing shots at another car. There is no suggestion he fired any of them but he was there in the thick of the action and eyewitnesses have already testified he threatened to kill patrons during the row. Which, of course, is exactly what the people in Vegas claim he did four months back.