Maybe the NFL should change the Buccaneers’ colors back to prisoner orange.

RB Michael Pittman was arrested over the weekend on a half-dozen felony counts (three each of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment for those of you scoring at home) after allegedly ramming his wife’s car with his Hummer. His wife, his son and a babysitter just happened to be in the car at the time. Pittman’s arrest was the third for the Bucs this offseason, with Dwight Smith getting arrested in April on charges of brandishing a handgun at another motorist (hey, who hasn’t done that?) and Kenyatta Walker getting nailed a few days later on charges of disorderly conduct outside of a nightclub.

Pittman’s arrest was made worse by the fact that this is the fourth time he has been arrested in domestic violence incidents. In 1997 he was arrested after a former girlfriend accused him of grabbing her by the neck and slamming her face into the seat of a car. Then, in 2001, he was arrested twice in a three-week span for getting into fights with his wife, which resulted in probation and a one-game suspension from the league.

Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden still has cleared Pittman to continue working with the team in the wake of the latest incident, saying that he will let the legal system run its course. Which is, of course, a cop out. The arrests of Smith and Walker are bad enough, but those were isolated incidents. Smith doesn’t have a history of shotgun incidents and Walker generally isn’t disorderly enough to get arrested at nightclubs.

Pittman, on the other hand, has shown a pattern of behavior. Generally I’m not for people losing their jobs for off-the-field things. Mistakes are part of life, and people can have bad nights. I thought Gary Moeller got railroaded by the University of Michigan a few years back when he got drunk and made a scene in public. I don’t think Larry Eustachy deserved to get fired from his job at Iowa State because he didn’t really do anything illegal. He just used bad judgment. Bad judgment is part of life, and certainly a part of sports. Does the name Tony Mandarich ring a bell?

But what Pittman did wasn’t just a lack of judgment. It wasn’t just a bad day. It was a relatively common reaction for him when he gets into fights with women. No, it isn’t an everyday occurrence, but four arrests in six years are more than just isolated incidents. Pittman obviously has a problem controlling his anger when it comes to women, and his history of problems should be enough for the Bucs to send him packing.

Let’s face it, folks. Women can make men crazy. Men can make women crazy. That is as much a part of anybody’s life as the sun coming up or there being too many commercials during the last two minutes of NFL games. But when a person can’t just roll with the craziness that comes with dealing with the opposite sex, that’s when there is a problem. The Buccaneers have to realize that Pittman has shown a history of such problems. And while Pittman says he is looking forward to people hearing his side of the story (although dents in his wife’s car pretty much tell me all I need to know), the fact is that the Buccaneers don’t need Pittman that bad to keep him around.

I always struggle with situations like this in my mind. Will cutting Pittman really help him in any way? Will cutting Pittman help the Buccaneers get re-focused as a team and return to taking photo ops instead of mug shots? The answer is yes on both counts.

Fear can be a powerful motivator, and if Pittman should get into the same situation again somewhere down the road, the thought of losing his job might be enough to keep his temper under wraps. The Bucs, meanwhile, could benefit because they will get rid of a distraction in the locker room and be forced to find new answers for a position that struggled last season. Coming off a Super Bowl win, everything was sunshine and puppies for the Bucs heading into the offseason. But clouds have rolled in and the puppies have gotten worms, and the team would be smart to make a statement.

Cutting Pittman might not be the best answer for everyone involved, but it certainly would show that domestic violence isn’t acceptable in any form. Yeah, Pittman will have his day in court and might have charges reduced at some point (seems that’s how these always play out), but the Buccaneers shouldn’t wait that long. They should move on, cutting a player that was disappointing at best last season as it is. He had a great game in the Super Bowl, but that one game shouldn’t be enough.

Don’t think I’m sitting on some moral high horse passing judgment on Pittman, either. If I were writing this after one incident, I could be accused of that. If I wrote this after a second arrest, there still could be some questions. Not every situation is as bad as it is first made out to be. But arrest after arrest no long becomes a question of whether or not something happened. It becomes a question of whether or not a behavior will ever stop. Pittman hasn’t shown us any reason to believe that this incident will be the last of the bunch.

The Bucs already have signed Terry Kirby in the wake of Pittman’s arrest, and that could be a sign that they are preparing to do something about the situation. Pittman faces jail time if convicted of the six felony counts, so the team could just be preparing for the chance that he trades his No. 32 for No. 3389559-3370986.

But the Bucs shouldn’t wait that long. I understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty, but I also believe past history should be taken into account. Considering that Pittman’s rap sheet needs a binder to keep it together, Tampa should look at the latest incident as the last straw. Allowing Pittman back on the field to play a silly little game sends the wrong message, one that the Bucs don’t really need to be associated with.