Adam 'Pacman' Jones Placed on Injured Reserve

If the Bengals are going to turn around their season and make it back to the playoffs this season, they are going to have to do it without Adam "Pacman" Jones.

The team placed the cornerback on injured reserve Tuesday with a neck injury suffered in Sunday's loss to the Falcons. That makes it four years since the last time Jones was able to complete a full NFL season. He was out of the league in 2009, limited to nine games in 2008 and suspended for the entire 2007 season after playing a leading role in a shooting outside a Las Vegas strip club.

Based on his 2010 campaign, he'll probably get a chance to make that right in 2011. Jones generally did a good job for the Bengals before getting hurt and he's also kept his nose clean after years of off-field incidents that made him talented but unemployable.

His nose has been so clean, in fact, that the one time Jones ran afoul of the law the case wound up with the Cincinnati police chief apologizing for arresting Jones in a case of mistaken identity. Assuming that he stays on the straight and narrow, his final game of the 2010 season should help him find gainful employment again next year.

Jones had his finest moment since joining the Bengals on Sunday. Jones stripped Roddy White after a completion in the third quarter and returned the ball 59 yards for a touchdown to cap a 22-point rally and briefly put Cincinnati in the lead in Atlanta. It was the kind of athletic, game-changing play that made him a star upon his arrival in the league with the Titans in 2005.