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Was he worth the trouble?
The Als' experiment with Lawrence Phillips ends with a whimper

On the limp and doubtful to play Sunday, Lawrence Phillips' CFL career -- all of one season -- looks like it will fizzle out quietly after the Grey Cup Sunday.

"Right now, he's very questionable,'' said head coach Don Matthews, shortly after the Montreal Alouettes arrived in Edmonton on Tuesday.

"He has a lot of swelling in his knee and it's very questionable at this time as to whether we're going to be able to get the swelling out or not. If not, he's out. We'll see what it looks like today -- I don't really know.

Plane rides generally don't bode well for guys with a swollen knee. In fact, one time we took a plane ride and his knee got even worse when we were on the plane and he was unable to play."

And with the speculation that the 27-year old is looking to jump back to the NFL, Montreal fans may soon have seen the last of the man who took Mike Pringle's job.

It's a far cry from how it began. A former first round NFL pick with a history of legal troubles, Phillips was the story back in the summer.

The Als were widely criticized for signing Phillips -- who had been arrested in the U.S. for domestic violence three times -- in the first place. But like three NFL teams before them, the Als were willing to overlook his legal and disciplinary problems, tantalized by his combination of power and speed.

But it didn't take long for Phillips to live up to his troubled reputation. He walked out on the team during the first week of training camp and soon brashly declared himself the best player in the league after playing just one half of the Als' first pre-season game.

The six-foot-one, 225-pound running back also showed why NFL teams kept giving him second-chances. He rumbled for 104 yards in the first regular season game, then 90 yards the next week and 105 yards the week after that.

He led the league in rushing for much of the first half of the season before walking out on the team again before the Als' Week 9 meeting with the B.C. Lions, which they lost. But he was back again the next week and promptly rushed for 118 yards.

Phillips was largely out of the headlines during the second half of the season. A knee injury limited his playing time and he stayed quiet -- he stopped talking to the media after going AWOL -- and out of trouble. In fact another former top NFL pick, the Eskimos' John Avery, overshadowed Phillips with a string of dominating performances.

Despite the injury Phillips finished fifth in rushing with 1,022 yards on 187 carries. His average of 5.5 yards per carry was second only to Avery's. He also caught 33 passes for another 292 yards.

It's likely that Phillips while try to use those numbers as a springboard back into the NFL.

Phillips was picked sixth overall by the St. Louis Rams in 1996. He played 25 games for the Rams over two seasons before being released for insubordination. In less than two years with the team he was arrested three times

He had already earned a "troubled" tag while he was still at Nebraska University, where he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend.

After leaving St. Louis, Phillips joined the Miami Dolphins, but off-field problems caught up with him there as well, he was released after he was arrested for hitting a woman in a nightclub.

After an outstanding season with the Barcelona Dragons of NFL Europe Phillips got another chance in the NFL, this time with the San Francisco 49ers.

But Phillips didn't win the starting job there and his unhappiness showed. In a game against the Arizona Cardinals he missed a key block that led to quarterback Steve Young suffering a devastating hit and the concussion that would end his career. Soon after he was released yet again for skipping practice.