A onetime point of pride for the New England Patriots has suddenly skewered the NFL franchise.

The team that has famously gotten the most out of some talented players viewed as character risks - among them receiver Randy Moss and running back Corey Dillon - has had to exercise damage control in the wake of Aaron Hernandez's arrest on first-degree murder charges.

The former Patriots tight end, accused of one homicide and reportedly being investigated for an apparent connection to two more, was deemed too risky to draft by some teams.

New England took a chance, however, selecting the troubled University of Florida standout in the fourth round of the 2010 draft - seemingly a bargain for a player many evaluators considered a first-round talent. For three seasons, the move paid off, with Hernandez reaching the Pro Bowl in 2011 and garnering a five-year contract extension worth as much as $40 million.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty in the slaying of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd and is being held without bail in a Massachusetts jail. Less than two hours after his arrest on June 26, Hernandez was released by the Patriots. To further distance itself from him, the franchise took the unprecedented step of a jersey exchange. Fans with used Hernandez jerseys can swap them at the team store this weekend for those of any other player on the roster.

The high-profile arrest of Hernandez and the subsequent flood of information about his troubled past has sparked a debate within the NFL: When is a risky pick too risky?

"Without question, the owners are talking to their general managers as soon as this happened, saying, 'Let's make sure this doesn't happen to us,'" said former NFL coach Jimmy Johnson, who won two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys with some troubled players on his roster. "It's almost the pendulum swings the other way in that there are probably going to be some players that are able to get on the straight and narrow who are going to be bypassed because people are going to be afraid of getting into a situation like this."

Not everyone agrees. Tony Dungy, who won a Super Bowl as coach of the Indianapolis Colts, believes there will be little ripple effect from the Hernandez situation and that clubs will continue to do what they have done for decades, rolling the dice on players with character issues if the price is right.

"You're going to get enough people to overlook it," Dungy said. "People will say, 'I may not want to risk drafting this guy in the first round and paying him so much that if it goes haywire I've lost out. But at some point, it's worth the risk.' That's the way it is.

"Talent is the overriding factor in the NFL. Has been for a long time."

There were warning signs with Hernandez, who had failed drug tests and run-ins with the law in college. A scouting service that prepares confidential psychological profiles of NFL prospects determined that he enjoyed "living on the edge of acceptable behavior," according to a document obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

The evaluation, prepared by Human Resource Tactics in North Carolina, a company used by more than half of the NFL's 32 teams, said Hernandez scored a lowest possible 1 out of 10 in "social maturity," although he scored a perfect 10 in "focus" and nines in "self-efficacy" and "receptivity to coaching." The test determined Hernandez "may be prone to partying too much and doing questionable things that could be seen as a problem for him and his team."