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On the NFL draft, Conley, Mixon, and hypocrisy

There’s just a tiny bit of hypocrisy in the way teams approach draft prospects who have been accused of or committed a crime.

Michael Vick was involved in the torture and electrocution of dogs, served his time, then played five seasons with the Eagles. Dorial Green-Beckham missed a big chunk of his college career after pushing a woman down a flight of stairs and getting arrested for marijuana possession.

Forgive me if I'm forgetting additional cases — Kiko Alonso kicking in a woman's door, etc. — but that's precisely the point.

There's just a tiny bit of hypocrisy in the idea the Eagles won't take Gareon Conley in the first round now because of a rape accusation for which he has yet to be arrested. Or that Joe Mixon is off their radar because he infamously punched a woman in the face, on a video, for all the world to see.

This NFL Fight Against Domestic Violence: Seems a little selective, doesn't it? As an owner, are you in, or are you out? As a coach, a teammate? Can you do the hokey-pokey on something like this, choosing your degree of morality based on the talent presented?

Click here for more coverage of the 2017 NFL draft in Philadelphia. Our live blog will have updates from the event starting Thursday at noon.

This is not something you do halfway. Character is not something that should be measured, or rewarded, through draft order. Yet it is, time and time again. Sending what message, exactly?

Conley didn't tear a muscle, break a bone, get concussed. Didn't even get charged, not yet anyway. Many believe Mixon is the best back in the draft. Some believe he won't be drafted. You have to trace only back to the Kansas City Chiefs and Andy Reid last spring to understand how unlikely that is. Tyreek Hill, who pleaded guilty to abuse charges after choking and repeatedly punching his pregnant girlfriend in her stomach, was chosen in the fifth round by Reid and Chiefs general manager John Dorsey.

Reid, who lost a son through heroin abuse, was the guy who gave Vick his second chance. "I completely understand,'' he said after the Hill pick was met with criticism. "I'm sensitive to the situation. I get it. I've talked to women on the other side of this, on the receiving side. So I'm very sensitive to that. A lot of guys don't try to right the wrong. I give the kid credit for doing that, and he's really working hard at that.''

Reid's a sincere man. Here's what's hard to get around, though: There are a slew of fringe players you have never heard of or barely heard of who never got that tolerance because their talent wasn't enough even to take a flier on. It's OK to suffer public scrutiny and scorn, NFL teams continue to say through their actions, if you believe the talent will obscure or outlast it.

Hill's has. Lining up at receiver and returner, the 5-foot-10, 185-pound rookie scored a dozen touchdowns in a variety of manners – six catches, three rushing, two punt returns, and a kickoff return. He was voted to the all-pro team.

And the domestic abuse? In four national telecasts, it was mentioned once.

Regardless of whether he is charged, whether those charges are conjured or real, Conley will be playing for some NFL team next season. Just maybe not for the same amount of money he was in line to earn earlier this week. Same for Mixon, who one AFC scout told Sports Illustrated has acted like "a model citizen'' since his unconscionable act two years ago, when he was 18, but who also tore up a parking ticket and threw it in the meter reader's face last October.

"If I could take it back, I would,'' Mixon said. "I can't. So I have to keep moving forward, doing the right things. I can't keep worrying about something that happened three years ago.''

I'm not sure about the choice of words at the end. But if he is indeed a chagrined man, "a model citizen,'' as that AFC scout said, then why hasn't he climbed back into the first-, or second-round projections?

The apparent answer is that teams want the player without the publicity.

One foot in, one foot out, wait the appropriate number of rounds before offering salvation. A lot of motion for sure, a loss of money, all of it masked as morality.

And then … play on.