In our most recent post, we talked about the money that Cowboys cornerback Pacman Jones can earn under his new four-year contract.

But he has to be reinstated before he gets paid.  And if the guy whom Jones fingered as the trigger man outside the Minxx strip club in Vegas circa February 2007 is to be believed, Jones might not see a dollar of it in 2008, and perhaps beyond.

Arvin Edwards, in a phone interview with Nashville’s NewsChannel 5, claims that Jones has framed him.

“I’m not the person who done this,” Edwards said.  “I’ve been shot before.  I know how it feels.”

Edwards also denies seeking money from Jones after the fact for “services rendered.”  

“I definitely didn’t receive no $15,000,” Edwards said. “I definitely didn’t extort nobody out of no money.”  (Technically, then, Edwards is saying that he did extort somebody out of some money, but we don’t think that’s what he means.)

So who did the shooting?  “[Jones] knows they name,” Edwards said. “He knows they street name.  He needs to tell on them instead of trying to put this on me when he knows I didn’t do this and he know I never met him before and he know he don’t know me and I don’t know him.”

Edwards claims that Jones is singling him out because Jones wanted to cement his plea deal with police and pave the way for returning to the NFL.  “I don’t have no reason to lie,” Edwards said.

And that’s where Edwards lost us.  Because he clearly has a reason to lie.  Because if he shot those folks, he’s going away for a long, long time.

Regardless, Edwards’ contention highlights the mess through which Commissioner Roger Goodell must wade in attempting to decide whether Jones is worthy of returning to the NFL.  Jones now claims that the shooter inadvertently concluded that Jones ordered a hit.  We’ve got a feeling that Jones told Goodell a very different version when they met prior to the imposition of that one-year suspension.  If so, we might eventually see a pointed letter from Goodell explaining to Jones that he has yet to qualify for the privilege of playing pro football.

The bigger problem is that, if Jones is the star witness for the prosecution in the case of Nevada v. Edwards, the changes of a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are slim, which means that there might ultimately be no criminal sanctions imposed for the incident that left Urbanski paralyzed.