That's the conundrum I've been pondering after 2022 kicked off with one of the weirdest weeks in sport I can remember.

Let's start with former rugby league Test winger Blake Ferguson, who somehow managed to get himself arrested on drugs charges and sacked by his Japanese rugby union club before he had even laced on a boot.

Ferguson was one of the NRL's recurring dimwits during a 12-year career with Cronulla, Canberra, Sydney Roosters and Parramatta.

Poor old Fergo. If he sat down for an IQ test alongside a box of hammers, my money would be on the box of hammers.

The fact that Fergo seems to think Josh Dugan is a good bloke to hang around pretty much says it all.

Anyway, the 31-year-old - who at various times in his NRL career swore off alcohol - had scarcely touched down in the land of the rising sun when he allegedly became involved in an altercation with another patron in a Tokyo restaurant and was arrested by police.

He was reportedly taken to Azabu police station, where they allegedly searched him and found an amount of cocaine in his possession.

His club, NEC Green Rockets, wasted no time in tearing up Ferguson's contract.

Moreover, the "deeply apologetic" club issued a statement the following day in which they declared Ferguson had "greatly betrayed the expectations of everyone who supports the team on a daily basis".

Apparently they don't muck around with the likes of Blake Ferguson in Japan.

In 2020, New Zealander Joel Everson served 23 days in a prison after testing positive for the use of cocaine while playing for Hino Red Dolphins.

The entire competition was suspended for three weeks after Everson's arrest and the Red Dolphins cancelled all their remaining games for the season.

No need for integrity units or three-strikes drugs policies. Just sack offenders and throw them in jail, and same again for the next in line (pun intended).

And it gets me wondering if there's a lesson in all this for the NRL.

Maybe if Ferguson had been rubbed out (permanently) at some point in his rugby league career - say, for instance, when he was convicted of indecently assaulting a woman in a Cronulla nightclub in 2014 - the NRL would have fewer loose cannons dragging the code into disrepute.

Instead the NRL continues to be embarrassed by the likes of former Canberra centre Curtis Scott, arrested while playing golf this week and charged with eight counts, including reckless choking, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and stalking/intimidating a former girlfriend.

Like Ferguson, Scott's career has been tarnished by a number of off-field incidents. And that, inevitably, is what can happen when you give blokes a second chance.

Predictably, there are no shortage of contenders to replace Ferguson and Scott in the NRL dunce's corner.

Not while ever the likes of Raiders five-eighth Jack Wighton have access to social media.

"Thought I was getting the stupid vax so I didn't have to do another year off [sic] this s--t" Wighton posted on Instagram, apparently after learning that NRL players are facing another year of strict biosecurity protocols.

I mean, honestly, this is just next-level idiocy.

My advice to Wighton is turn up, do what you're told, and consider yourself lucky to be earning $800,000 a year. Alternatively, perhaps he could pursue a new career path as a brain surgeon or astrophysicist.

The subject of COVID and vaccines allows me to segue, hopefully neatly, into my thoughts regarding the notorious anti-vaxxing weirdo Novak Djokovic.

Initially when I heard Djokovic has been detained at Melbourne airport and was facing deportation, I was tempted to pop the cork and start spraying champagne.

Nobody is bigger than the game, yet the world's No.1 tennis player had held the Australian Open to ransom, and Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley had agreed to pay it by organising an exemption for the Serb to compete.

Yet my attitude changed when I saw the smug mug of Prime Minister Scott Morrison laying the slipper into Djokovic during a press conference.

"Rules are rules," insisted the bloke who slammed ICAC as a "kangaroo court" and has shown no great enthusiasm for installing a similar rule-enforcing mechanism in Canberra.

Disgraceful as it is that Tiley and his cronies were willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Djokovic, I believe it is even more deplorable that Scomo has latched onto this issue in what would appear a fairly calculated attempt to win votes.

Djokovic, holed up in a Melbourne hotel as lawyers battle to secure a visa that will allow him to play, has become a political pawn.

Initially, I had zero sympathy. Now my fingers are crossed that the Federal Court rules in his favour.

Maybe his harsh "welcome" Down Under will prompt Djokovic to reassess his vaccine stance, in which case he's not as silly as I thought.

Regardless, part of me hopes he winds up holding the trophy aloft. The PM will look pretty stupid if the last laugh is at his own expense.