Remember when 2K allowed OJ Simpson to play for The Assassins?

I've been telling y'all for a while now, that although EA Sports keeps kicking us while we're down with its football franchises, 2K is not the glorious savior to help us. Today, I dip into the old sports gaming journalist archives to remind you of a legendary 2K sports gaffe.

After losing the rights to make an NFL licensed game, 2K worked with 240 retired NFL players to make All Pro Football 2K8. One of those players was disgraced former Buffalo Bills star O.J. Simpson, acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman because Johnny Cochrane was really good at his job.

The only reason to do this was the publicity 2K knew they would get from not doing what everybody else in the sports industry was doing and treating Simpson as radioactive. There's an old saying in journalism and public relations that there is "no such thing as bad publicity." O.J.'s inclusion in the game earned far more coverage than say, John Elway's.

Making things even worse was 2K's desperation in coming up with team names. One of the squads was called the New Jersey Assassins, a reference to the hit HBO show The Sopranos. In a true edgelord move, its players celebrated with the throat slash. Since these made-up franchises had no history or rosters of their own, players assembled their own teams.

You didn't have to be clairvoyant to see what would happen here. The worst people in the world would put Simpson on this team and make the throat-slash gesture at every opportunity. It's impossible to believe somebody at 2K didn't see exactly how that would turn out.

The extra pub didn't give All Pro Football 2K8 any extra market penetration. So they gave money to let's be real, a double murderer, and didn't even make a dime off of it. Imagine selling your soul to lose money on the deal.

But we have enough history on our side now to know Simpson's inclusion isn't what made the game a one-and-done. The failure of every football game without the NFL license, including the recent Wild Card Football has made one thing abundantly clear. Fans really are cheering for the jerseys, not the players.