CINCINNATI — Adam “Pacman” Jones didn’t even try to put a positive spin on his year away from football.

The cornerback who entered the NFL with such promise in 2005 spent all last season trying to get back into the game, looking for someone — anyone — who would give him another chance. For a while, it looked like that chance might not come.

“It was miserable,” he said.

Miserable enough to make him learn anything?

The 26-year-old Jones said that he has changed his lifestyle and reordered his priorities in the past year, the result of much soul-searching while he was outside the NFL. The Cincinnati Bengals gave him a two-year deal that represents what could be his final chance to prove it.

During his first interview session in town Wednesday, Jones told reporters that he no longer hangs around with the same people who helped him get into trouble after he was Tennessee’s first-round pick in 2005. He recognized that a lot of things had to change.

“Of course, you change as you grow,” Jones said. “Like I said, it ain’t overnight. I’m 26 years old now, so I can’t do the same things I was doing at 21, or I’m going to be dead or in jail. I know what my passion is, and my passion is football. I know what I’ve got to do to keep playing football, and that’s what I’m working on doing.”