Images of Browns DL Malik McDowell Walking Around Naked at a School are Every Bit as Disturbing as They Sound

Source - Cleveland Browns defensive lineman Malik McDowell was completely naked while he was being arrested on Monday ... new video, obtained by TMZ Sports, shows.

In the footage, you can see the 6-foot-6, 290-pound football player did not have a single article of clothing on his body ... as officers tried to subdue him in Deerfield Beach, FL.

McDowell, who had cuffs on his wrists and shackles around his ankles in the clip, appeared to be very agitated with cops, writhing on the ground nearly every time an officer got near him. ...

Officers say when they found him and confronted him, he attacked -- with one cop alleging the football player told him "f*** you" and then "charged at me ... at full speed with closed fist."

The officer claimed McDowell struck him so hard and so many times, he suffered injuries in the altercation -- including a badly swollen eye.

My first reaction to this is to realize that either the world has changed, or the blogosphere has changed or I have. Because I can promise you that I or anyone else writing at Barstool 10 or maybe even five years ago would've mined this for comedy gold. There would've been jokes about Malik McDowell getting signed by the Bengals or being named head coach of the Jets or getting crowned as the King of Florida. But I don't have it in me any more. Whether it's the world learning to have more empathy toward someone who is obviously in crisis or me just getting old and careful, I'll leave it up to you. But a guy running around naked outside a school and physically assaulting the police who are trying to protect all the kids and faculty inside just doesn't have the laugh value it might have once had. 

Watch the video and decide for yourself. But let me warn you, it's harrowing:

If you're not as familiar with McDowell as you are with other NFL defensive tackles, you can be forgiven. He was drafted by the Seahawks out of Michigan State with the 35th overall pick. In 2017. And this was his first season on an active roster. Which explains a lot. As does this video, from two years after that:

One might reasonably assume that if the Seahawks and now the Browns were both willing to take their chances with McDowell, that they afforded him all the mental health care they could. But whatever demons he's battling are obviously winning the fight because he's hanging brain in broad daylight and throwing haymakers at cops. Further proof that just because someone was touched by the gods with enough athleticism to send him to a DI school and get taken at the beginning of Day 2 of the NFL draft doesn't mean they have the faculties to function normally in society. And it's tragic way more than it's funny. Here's hoping the next round of treatment he receives - most likely in prison - takes so he can live a somewhat normal, productive life. 

And while this might not be the most popular opinion in America as it's currently constituted, next time you hear someone painting all police with a broad brush as sadistic maniacs who abuse their power, keep in mind that when someone calls 911 about a 6-foot-6, 300 lb athletic specimen running around naked, it falls to them to subdue him. There's no one else they can pawn that duty off on. And they did it in this case without anyone getting injured. Except, of course, the officer who took the repeated blows and ended up with a damaged eye. Again, maybe that's just me talking, as the father of a son who's going to be a law enforcement officer in the near future. We can and should feel back for Malik McDowell. But let's spare some empathy for the people who took him into custody safely while we're at it.