Daddy D-Mac? We don't know -- and NFL teams shouldn't care

Freeman: Run from D-Mc

Well look who just fell off the turnip truck -- little Mikey Freeman, who is warning all those wholesome folks in the NFL to repent and stay away from Darren McFadden's semen.

If McFadden has released his sperm and found it to be potent enough to produce a child, this is a big deal to the woman and the child and McFadden himself. But this is not a big deal to an NFL team. This is not even a small deal. This is no deal.

There are reasons to scrutinize Darren McFadden. Paternity isn't among them. (AP)

NFL teams have other things to worry about, like McFadden's relatively small lower body or his tendency to fumble at Arkansas or even his penchant for being outside nightclubs when police are summoned to the scene, which happened twice during his three years in college.

If McFadden is a character risk, and I don't know that he is, he's a character risk because of the nightclubs. Not because of his night moves.

At the moment there is a tiny amount of information, and all sorts of misinformation, about McFadden's alleged virility. The enormously influential ProFootballTalk.com, which traffics in some news and some rumor and is a must read for journalists and NFL people alike, recently noted the "rumors swirling that Arkansas running back Darren McFadden has fathered as many as four children with four different women."

That's not good. One woman had McFadden submit to a paternity test, and while he reportedly will have to be tested again, initial results showed he was not the father. That leaves McFadden as the father of three kids with three women. Or does it?

The Miami Herald, which seems to be the original source of this information, reported that McFadden has been asked to submit paternity tests for two kids expected to be delivered this summer by different mothers. So that's two. Or is it four?

And might it be zero? What if the other two women are digging falsely for gold? Maybe McFadden has no illegitimate kids. Definitely McFadden is a target, like all professional athletes are. They are young, they are rich, and they are interested in sex. An unscrupulous woman could make herself a lot of money, not to mention a child, with a man like that.

It doesn't make the athlete a particularly good guy, but it doesn't make him a draft risk for an NFL team, either -- unless you play the Travis Henry card, which I'm sure Freeman is slapping on the table as if he just drew a fourth ace.

The thing is, Travis Henry isn't an ace. He's not even a king. He's a jackass. Henry is the Denver Broncos running back who has reportedly fathered nine children with nine women, and who capped that burst of common sense by failing several NFL drug tests.

Henry appealed and beat the latest test findings, but that's not the point. The point is, Freeman and other nattering nabobs of naiveté are going to draw a comparison between the social irresponsibility of fathering children out of wedlock with the potential NFL unavailability of breaking league rules.

It's a comparison that works in a vacuum, but here in the real world we have oodles of athletes who have fathered one or more kids with one or more women and who manage to produce at a high level on the field while staying out of legal trouble off it.

Here are just some of the athletes who have reportedly fathered kids out of wedlock or even faced paternity-type lawsuits: Tom Brady, Matt Leinart, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Jim Palmer, Steve Garvey, Oscar De La Hoya. And on and on and on. It happens. It shouldn't happen, but it does. And it always will. And the NFL executive who passes on Darren McFadden because it (might have) happened to McFadden is an NFL executive too dumb to do his job.

McFadden isn't the next Adrian Peterson -- not sturdy enough, not tough enough between the tackles -- but he might be the next Marshall Faulk. And that's not bad.

McFadden will be one of the fastest players on the field, and he will bring a skill set that includes running, catching and even throwing. McFadden will break open games with huge plays, and when those games are finished there won't be a single question about his one or two illegitimate kids. Assuming he has any.

Accusations aren't always accurate. At this time last year, Cal running back Marshawn Lynch saw his draft stock drop after a woman who claimed to be his former girlfriend claimed he had abused her. Google "Marshawn Lynch" and "character risk." You'll get tons of stories. And they were all wrong, because police never found enough evidence to charge Lynch, much less convict him.

But I'll throw little Mikey Freeman a bone. For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume McFadden is the father of the two kids in which first-time paternity tests await. That would still give McFadden one less kid than either Priest Holmes or Willis McGahee -- who have seven 1,000-yard rushing seasons between them. Children didn't slow down those guys. And they won't slow down McFadden.

If Freeman is so interested in ridding the NFL of character risks, maybe he should look into Boston College offensive tackle Gosder Cherilus, who was charged with assault and battery in an alleged three-on-one fight outside a nightclub that left a man with a very real broken neck. Or Freeman could investigate South Florida cornerback Mike Jenkins, who was suspended after being accused of disorderly conduct and obstructing a police officer at 3 a.m. outside a nightclub.

Not that the NFL cares. Both those players are first-round picks, and three of the first 10 picks last year -- Calvin Johnson, Gaines Adams, Amobi Okoye -- were taken after admitting to smoking pot. No. 17 pick Jarvis Moss was suspended in college for the same thing. No. 24 pick Brandon Meriweather had been involved in a gunfight and had stomped an opposing player.

If the NFL doesn't care about that stuff, it won't worry about Darren McFadden's family tree. Running the football is all about the mobility of your feet -- not the mobility of your sperm.