Chandler Jones Has Been Tweeting Up a Storm and it's Hard Not to Conclude He's Seriously in Crisis

Jeff Bottari. Getty Images.

When it's your job to cover sports and culture, but looking for the angles that provide the maximum entertainment value, there's no more sugar-coated sweet spot than a high profile athlete involved in something that is both weird and funny. Which Chandler Jones was providing in spades for a while, with his sudden and unexpected beef with the Raiders. 

Then, the 50-50 split of weird and funny started titling way toward the weirdness, and away from the comedy:

Then it stopped being funny altogether earlier this week, when he made some, to put it politely, remarkable claims about being institutionalized against his will by a group of people he didn't identify:

TMZ - The 33-year-old NFL player said it all happened after authorities told him "people were concerned about me because of my posts online."

"I answered my front door," Jones said Monday evening on his X page in what appeared to be pictures of recent journal entries, "and a group of 5 to 7 were there to put me in an ambulance where I was later injected and I asked them not to."

The pass rusher -- a two-time All-Pro -- says he was first taken to Southern Hills Hospital, before he was transported to the Seven Hills Behavioral Health Hospital, a treatment facility for those struggling with mental health issues.

"They tried to force me to take meds and injections," he said of his time at the facility.

 Jones added that the place was not one for "high-profile athletes."

At this point, a story like this takes on a whole new tenor. Better suited to an actual news site than wedged here between celebrity sexcapades and golfers' poop stories. Which are real the reason we all come here, not disturbing stories of "high profile athletes" in serious crisis. But I can't help but acknowledge that's exactly what's happening with Jones. 

Rather than being injected with mysterious substances in a mental hospital, Jones has spent the last 24 hours or so on X/Twitter, posting a non-stop series of stream-of-consciousness rants. And in no way am I trying to be flippant when I say this, but scrolling through them and watching his videos will give you that same feeling you get when you see Britney Spears in her underwear dancing with kitchen knives. You just want this person's life to be saved, and for them to somehow be made whole again:

I don't know where to begin. But it won't be when he made public the phone number of the Raiders Director of Player Wellness after someone texted it to him in good faith, pleading with him to give her a call. So instead, I'll just give you this random sample:

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Then he mentions his former Raiders executives:

Then possibly making threats:

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Perhaps throwing shade at Mr. Kraft, but misunderstanding how he made his fortune?

Suggesting a personal reason why he might be spiraling: 

A little bit of shadow conspiracy talk thrown in for good measure:

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And then finally, breaking down in tears after suggesting that Aaron Hernandez didn't kill himself in prison. And then reposting the clip when a Raiders fan page put it up:

I can barely get a grasp my own state of mental well being, so I'm not about to try to play amateur psychologist and diagnose a guy I've only met a couple of times while interviewing him on WEEI seven or eight years ago. But I defy anyone to watch this and not see someone with crippling depression who needs all the help he can get, as soon as he can get it. From the outside looking in, it seems like the Raiders organization has been trying to get it to him. We've seen enough supremely gifted athletes go into the NFL and meet tragic ends to last a hundred lifetimes. Let's pray Jones gets what he needs to avoid being another. 

That said, now please let's get back to the harmless nonsense Barstool exists for.