FOR the 16 clubs, the Cousins question is really a series of questions: Can he get over the addiction? Will his hamstring stand up? Does he become a distraction? What will the sponsors think?

And then there is the essential question, the one that drives all that exhaustive "due diligence" and prompts the other queries and investigations.

It's not whether you "trust Ben" or if you believe in the power of redemption.

Quite simply, can he deliver a premiership?

That's the core question. The AFL is still a competition in which clubs compete for the premiership. Unfortunately for Cousins, very few think that he could be the difference between finals and a flag.

St Kilda and the Brisbane Lions, indeed, are the only suitors who have retained any lust for Ben, and the Lions are thought to be losing their ardor. It's possible that the Saints may be the sole suitor, the only bidder.

Of the many factors that have conspired against Cousins, and dampened the demand for a magnificent footballer, the most overlooked is this: That there aren't enough premiership contenders.

Consider the competition, the ladder of 2008 and the distance between Hawthorn and Geelong and the rest. It's accepted by virtually all clubs that the top two were — and, barring injury, should remain — ahead of the pack. An upstart may emerge in 2009, but, as of mid-November, there isn't anyone in the position of Hawthorn 12 months ago, when it rolled the dice on Stuart Dew.

Given that neither Hawthorn nor the Cats had any interest in Cousins (despite his father Bryan having played for Geelong), Cousins needed a raft of premiership aspirants underneath. Ideally, he would be entering the draft with six or seven teams believing they could win the flag in 2009, some reckoning they are just "a midfielder short".

As some clubs explain it, there's little point punting on Cousins — and, implicitly, that means bearing all the baggage he brings — unless there's a pot of silver, or the realistic prospect of one, at the end of the rainbow.

Carlton is among the clubs that, in posing the Cousins question, decided that he did not fit into their premiership plans. The Blues don't see themselves as contenders for at least a couple of years, by which stage Cousins would be rising 33.

"Our thinking from day one, with regard to this (Cousins) was exactly that," said Carlton football operations manager Steven Icke. "We're sort of looking at 'when does our window open up?' And we're still a couple of years away from when we think we'll really have a crack at winning one.

"And any player that's 30 and will be 31 next year, we look at that and think 'well, OK what sort of role will they play?' They could make a contribution to us maybe getting to that stage (contention) but what role will they play when we reach that stage?

"And that's the thinking with us."

Collingwood, which finished sixth, had various reasons for ending its flirtation with Cousins, including some muffled concerns from sponsors. The Magpies did not need to hire a private detective, however, to know that they were more than one very good player shy of Hawthorn, and that he alone wouldn't bridge that gap.

Cousins didn't fit "the age profile" of Melbourne and Essendon, which is the same as saying he won't win us a flag. North Melbourne's financial position and issue with sponsors, made him problematic, and the Roos aren't too close. West Coast couldn't take him back. Fremantle is in for kids, and so forth.

Outside of Hawthorn and Geelong, the Bulldogs are perhaps the only club with grounds for considering itself within cooee of a premiership, having finished a clear-cut third, with an honorable preliminary final loss to the Cats.

But as every Doggie fan knows, it was not the absence of hard-running midfielders that prevented them from reaching their first grand final in 47 years. They need a competent power forward.

One wonders whether the Dogs, who were willing to take on a 30-year-old Jason Akermanis, would have jumped if, rather than Cousins, the recovering drug addict had been, say, Jonathan Brown. Sources said that the Dogs, who are in the market for a major sponsor, did not want to take the risk in the current financial environment.

St Kilda is in an interesting position. It did finish fourth, and thus can consider itself within reach, yet its finals performances against the top two suggests that it may as well have been seventh or eighth.

The only other recent AFL champion to have attracted comparable headlines to Cousins due to off-field behaviour also was available, at the age of 30, six years ago. But Wayne Carey, whose body was far more battered than Ben Cousins', was considered attractive enough for Adelaide to part with pick four in the national draft — a selection that soon became pick two, thanks to Carlton's draft penalties, and delivered Daniel Wells to Arden Street.

The Crows reasoned that Carey represented the missing link, that they were only "a strong-marking forward" away from a grand final or premiership.

They miscalculated on both counts.

They weren't one player away, and Carey was no longer that player anyway.

If the AFL landscape has done Cousins no favours, he can console himself with this: that, even if 15 clubs say no, he needs only one "yes" on draft day.