This next sentence is difficult to write because Mitchell Pearce is a good man who – let's face it – has been the game's preferred punching bag because he never made the NSW halfback's jumper his own.
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But the Roosters have no choice: they have to sack him. Time to let him go, as much for his sake as theirs.
Mitchell Pearce is a good man. The sober Mitchell Pearce.
The other one should join the club where you can't drink alcohol. Not one, because one is too many and one more is never enough. There's no shame in it. It's a big club.
On Thursday morning, I stood in line at a Surry Hills cafe waiting for a coffee.
Two men stood next to me, thumbing The Sydney Morning Herald, snickering at the front and back page stories about the Roosters captain and his now-infamous Australia Day rampage that was cunningly captured on a man's camera phone.
Imagine if they saw the pages of The Daily Telegraph, which ran a full-page, grainy image of a shirtless Pearce simulating intercourse with a "small white poodle-cross"?
It's just another image to hang on the wall in Rugby League's Gallery of Modern Shame. There's barely any space left.
As players from other codes love to say: "There's drunk – and then there's rugby league drunk".
The Roosters are adamant they haven't made up their mind about what sanctions the 26-year-old will face. He's been stood down pending an investigation.
Normally, when these episodes happen – and not for the first time involving Pearce – the club will privately roll out explanations for the player's behaviour. Yeah, he stuffed up but …
For the first time, the Roosters weren't making those noises about Pearce on Thursday. They are more concerned about his issues with alcohol. Rehab is being considered.
Initially, the club pushed the line that his drinking session on a boat on Sydney Harbour with his teammates was his first dalliance with alcohol in about six weeks.
This conflicts with those who saw him drinking in Double Bay a fortnight ago with other Roosters players.
On the night of Australia Day, Pearce and a handful of teammates kept drinking at a prominent Double Bay pub, the Royal Oak, after their boat returned to shore.
That's where they met a group of women, who invited them back to an apartment, where events escalated to another level, starting with Pearce trying to kiss one girl before moving on to her puppy dog and ending with him being turfed out.
The fact the man holding the camera kept asking for Pearce's name suggests he had nefarious motives from the beginning.
Within 24 hours, the video was being shopped around by "global online digital media exchange" Diimex, which is the same mob that sold the images of John Singleton's drunken rampage at Kingsley's Steak and Crabhouse in Woolloomooloo last May.
Channel Nine and the Telegraph quickly snapped up the Pearce footage. The Telegraph denied reports from this column it had paid $40,000 – the figure suggested by the Roosters – but would not clarify exactly how much was paid.
For the record, Fairfax Media has since paid a much smaller sum for the Pearce video.
The Roosters suspect Pearce has fallen headfirst into a classic honeytrap, drawing comparisons to the recent plight of Collingwood players who were lured into exchanging nude images via private message on Instagram only to find themselves splashed all over Woman's Day.
Whoever it was in that apartment who captured the video before on-selling it should hang their head in shame. Spend the money wisely. Maybe use it to buy a conscience.
Yet in no way does the selling of the footage absolve Pearce of blame.
Questions have also been asked about whether the Roosters should've been on a boat on the harbour sinking beers in the first place. The club knew about the get-together, but didn't pay for the boat. In hindsight, it should've knocked the idea on the head, or at least scheduled in a training session the next morning.
But the club cannot be held totally responsible for the actions of its players, especially its captain.
Many fans are prising open the shame file, and the names Carney, Ferguson, Monaghan, Myles and dozens more are spilling out.
But the comparisons mean nothing. There has never been a sliding scale for this sort of stuff.
Pearce is 26. He has played more than 200 games of first grade, and this is supposed to be his 10th season.
The turning point in his career supposedly came in May 2014, when he was arrested in Kings Cross for the "Girl in the yellow dress" episode. (Channel Nine paid for footage of that one, too).
He kept turning his career around, being named captain of his club around this time last year before reclaiming his NSW jumper.
Pearce – like most footballers – has often lamented that he is no different to any other twentysomething bloke entitled to a good time.
Others will argue that former players, stretching back decades, would never have survived in the modern era.
And was there really a victim in all of this? The girl? The dog?
Not really. Not compared with the serious matters involving players that have appeared before the courts in the past.
Yet none of this matters. The life of sporting stardom comes with as many traps as it does trimmings.
Don't like it? Don't play. Become a slob on the sidelines like the rest of us.
What stuns is how many people – from players, officials, fans – don't understand this.
ARL Commission chairman John Grant wanted the big chair after Dave Smith left the building. Let's see how he handles this one.
Perhaps the most damning indication of the anger concerning Pearce's behaviour comes from Roosters fans themselves.
Co-hosting the Big Sports Breakfast on Sky Sports Radio with Terry Kennedy on Thursday morning was enlightening.
Each Roosters fan who called wanted Pearce's contract torn up. One father said he'd just bought his nine-year-old son Pearce's Rooster jumper. Now he's sending it back.
The sober Mitchell Pearce is a good man.
Those who know him know that he's struggled with several issues, from being in the public spotlight from a young age to being the son of a legend. Wayne gave up alcohol when he was young and became the code's pin-up teetotaller.
Pearce needs a change away from the Roosters, as much as chairman Nick Politis, coach Trent Robinson and his teammates will throw their arms around him as he gets through this latest episode.
He still has a place in the game. It's just alcohol can no longer come along for the ride.