In case anyone needs more evidence that the NFL is in need of a far stronger player conduct policy, consider this:

On Tuesday afternoon, I Googled the name of troubled Tennessee cornerback Pacman Jones – who has had 10 encounters with police since entering the NFL in 2005 – and got 1,240,000 hits.

I then Googled the names of these seven Carolina Panthers players – Jake Delhomme, Jordan Gross, John Kasay, Mike Minter, Dan Morgan, Mike Rucker and DeAngelo Williams -and added all the hits. They totaled 1,223,000.

So Pacman Jones, by himself, had 17,000 more hits than a well-known, seven-man group of Panthers players who rank as virtual choirboys. With those numbers, you could argue that Pacman Jones stains the NFL’s image more quickly than his unsoiled brethren can scrub it clean.

Of course, Google isn’t a perfect barometer. And the Panthers, both current and former, aren’t all choirboys, either. Any team that once employed Rae Carruth can’t ever claim a permanent stake in the high ground.

But all this does help prove your mother’s theory that a few bad apples can spoil the bunch.

The NFL needs to make sure that doesn’t happen. The league has problems (steroids is another) but remains America’s most popular spectator sport for good reason. It delivers great drama and wondrous athletes with the consistency of sunsets, and in a format easy enough for a 5-year-old to follow.

But the league has been too easy on overindulged players who figure they can get in trouble once, twice or 10 times and have it “taken care of” because they run a 4.35 40.

The league grants broad powers to its NFL commissioner.

He basically gets to be the sheriff.

And new NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been making all sorts of noise the past few weeks about the stiffer personal-conduct policy that is about to be issued. It was reported to be coming this week. Now it sounds as though it will appear within a month.

“It’s a complicated issue, and there are no simple answers,” Goodell said Monday in Arizona, where the NFL is holding meetings.

Let’s simplify it. The NFL needs to start making repeat criminal offenders sit out at least a year without pay for their misconduct. Not four games (that often happens now). A year. Or two. Suspending Jones for a year would be an ideal place to start.

Also, franchises should be seriously sanctioned, by the loss of draft picks, if they can’t stop themselves from hiring and keeping one bad-behaving player after another. Are you listening, Cincinnati Bengals? This is believed to be part of Goodell’s plan, assuming it doesn’t get lawyered out.

There are delicate issues here that must not be trampled. Due process. Innocent until proven guilty.

It can work. It must. NFL locker rooms don’t really brim with thugs and thieves. I know that firsthand.

But when you find a bad apple, you have to get rid of it.