Tatum...What were you thinking?

I read this article this morning by Kevin Hench and it made me laugh..especially the part where he returns the luggage empty and his justification for taking it.




Tatum Bell Hop

While many Bengals have spent their checkered careers accumulating unwanted baggage, former All-Pro tailback Rudi Johnson needed only a couple of hours to shed his baggage in Detroit.

Apparently not everyone was watching the quiet dignity with which the last men cut from the Dallas Cowboys on Hard Knocks accepted their releases.

According to reports, Tatum Bell, the man who was cut to make room for Rudi, was so displeased with his displacement he left the Lions' facility with the Gucci luggage Johnson had received as a Pro Bowl gift. Bell contends it was all a misunderstanding, but at the very least he seems to have proven he deserves a spot in the NFL ... he'd fit right in with Rudi's old team.

The bags were returned without their contents by an unidentified woman.

"I got the bags back — empty," Johnson said. "So he's got a bunch of my underclothes. What he's going to do with that, I don't know. He's got some socks and boxers."

Bell issued this bizarre non-denial to the Detroit Free Press:

"I wasn't thinking or nothing," he said. "I just grabbed the backpack and grabbed the other bag. They weren't in nobody's locker or nothing like that. They were just sitting there by the computer area right there. I grabbed them and put them in the car."

Oh, well, as long as they were in the computer area and you grabbed them and put them in your car, by all means, help yourself to the contents therein.