just a few months after playing in Super Bowl XXX while playing for Pittsburgh and had again found trouble by drinking when it wasn’t permitted under league aftercare guidelines.
Showing the leadership side of his personality and wanting to help the team and Art Modell, who had been so loyal in giving Morris a second chance, Lewis took it upon himself to be Morris’ constant companion and youthful mentor. Lewis, despite being just 22 years old himself, wanted to be a role model for the older, troubled back and keep him on the straight and narrow.
At one point later in the season while celebrating at a post-game party on a Sunday night on the city’s west side, Morris again found his name in the wrong place in the Monday morning newspaper after getting into an altercation with a woman who was linked to teammate Derrick Alexander. It was a tangled mess that included Morris’ wife as well as the police. Alexander and Morris feuded privately, dividing the clubhouse, and Alexander found himself on the bench for a game in Jacksonville and, eventually, both wound up out of the organization. Coincidentally, they both surfaced in the same place, Kansas City, the following season.
The day after the incident, Lewis came to The Barn to do my show and confided in me that he always tried to keep Morris out of trouble, but the Texas Tech grad couldn’t help himself. He had no self-discipline at the dinner table or when it came to partying. Lewis was disgusted with Morris and threw his hands up in the air.
“I told Bam that nothing good is going to happen to you going to parties after games,” Lewis told me privately while dining on some crabs. “I told him, ‘You should stay home, mind your own business and be boring. That way nothing bad is going to happen and you stay out of trouble.’ But he doesn’t listen. He’ll never listen.”
Later in his career, Lewis could have used his own sound advice.
People ask me all the time, especially after the Atlanta Super Bowl incident
