One of the more difficult things to quantify in football is how much a player's character matters for success. Not only is character defined differently by different people, anecdotal evidence does not seem to lead in any one direction.
But there may be something concrete to consider in the NFL. Alex Piquero is a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas. In his research he has discovered players with a history of violent crime go on to commit more penalties on the football field than those who haven't. Recently I sat down with Professor Piquero to elaborate.
