Despite being arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday for driving while intoxicated with a blood alcohol level at twice the legal limit, Jets receiver Braylon Edwards will be listed as active to play Sunday, though he is not scheduled to start.
The Hot Read: First-Time Drunk Driving Offenses Should Result In Suspension
The soon-to-expire NFL collective bargaining agreement states that no player can be suspended or deactivated for a first-time DUI or DWI charge. If anyone is serious about preventing another Leonard Little or Donte Stallworth incident, the league and player’s union will come to an agreement on a change.
It demonstrates a wholesale lack of willingness to learn from the mistakes of others, considering Edwards had been out drinking with then-teammate Donte Stallworth in Miami the night in 2009 that Stallworth struck and killed Mario Reyes while driving drunk. It also doesn't augur well that Jets teammates Vernon Gholston and D'Brickashaw Ferguson decided it was fine for Edwards to be the one driving them around Tuesday in his impaired state, even though the league has a program that will alert a car service to pick up players who have been out drinking in any major city.
There have been murmurings made in the past that the reason that players avoid using the car service is because they fear that teams will know how many times a player has employed the service and will use that information against the player during contract negotiations. While some of those fears might be somewhat warranted, they would be rendered moot if the consequences players faced for drunken driving arrests, even on the first offense, were more severe.
According to the current collective bargaining agreement, a player charged will his first DUI or DWI cannot be suspended or deactivated as punishment. This means that, in addition to Edwards, the list of players who have been arrested for drunken driving offense since the beginning of 2010 -- a list that includes Ronnie Brown, Joey Porter, Rey Maualuga, Will Allen, Gerard Lawson, Quinton Ganther, Byron Westbrook, Ray McDonald and Spencer Havner -- face no significant disciplinary action from the league for an act that has resulted in two NFL players, Donte Stallworth and Leonard Little, taking the lives of others.
Compare the consequences of those actions with those imposed on Lions team president Tom Lewand, who was arrested in July on suspicion of drunk driving. Lewand, who later pleaded guilty, was fined $100,000 by the league and issued a 30-day suspension, even if it was recently reduced by nine days last week.
The message being sent, if this standard is not changed in the next CBA, is that the NFL might consider drunk driving a serious offense, but not enough so that the league is wiling to force any players to miss game time because of it. So, if you’re keeping score, getting in a scuffle with a cab driver can get you suspended, but being dangerously impaired behind the wheel of a car -- so long as it’s your first time -- cannot.
And it's not as though team executives don't realize that their team takes an image hit by having these players. For example, it was reported that Braylon Edwards' DWI arrest made it more difficult for the Chargers to trade Vincent Jackson on Wednesday. The implication was that, with player drunk driving headlines occupying the news, a team didn't want to announce that it just acquired a player who is currently suspended because he's been nailed on multiple DUI charges.
Newsday’s Bob Glauber wrote yesterday that the Jets were prepared to deactivate Edwards for Sunday’s game, but ultimately declined to do so, so as to avoid an altercation with the player’s union. A union spokesman told Glauber that the only way a change to the policy will be accepted is if it’s done through collective bargaining. Of course, finances far more than punishment for personal conduct issues will be what determines when and if a new CBA gets completed before a lockout in 2011. While negotiations may not hinge on penalties for first-time drunk driving arrests, it would be foolish for the player’s union not to offer that concession, not only because it’s a good-faith effort to push negotiations, but because it’s the right thing to do.
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