Former UGA linebacker Odell Thurman was released by Cincinnati Monday, just one month after being reinstated by the NFL after a two-year suspension.

The troubled linebacker did not attend voluntary workouts last week. He returned to Georgia after the death of his grandmother and had not returned.

"The NFL provided Odell the opportunity to earn his way back onto our team, but we have not seen the right steps taken by him," head coach Marvin Lewis said in a statement released by the team. "With our offseason work in progress and new talent added at our linebacker position, we've determined it's best to keep moving in a direction that does not include Odell."

Thurman's agent confirmed the player's absence from last week's workouts was the reason for his release.

"I was just told by coach Lewis that he hadn't been in the building enough since his reinstatement, and they decided to go in a different direction," Safarrah Lawson told the Associated Press.

Thurman, 24, was not on the Bengals roster in 2006 or 2007 for violations of the NFL's Substance Abuse Policy. He was suspended for the first four games of the 2006 season after failing to show up for a drug test. The suspension was extended to the rest of the season when he was arrested for drunken driving. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell denied his request for reinstatement for 2007.

Thurman was reinstated by the league on April 21.

Five days later, the Bengals took a linebacker, Keith Rivers, in the first round of the NFL draft.

The Bengals are installing a new defense, under defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who served the same capacity with the Falcons last season.

"He's still in Monticello (Ga.) taking care of things with his family," Lawson told Bengals.com in a story posted Monday. "(Owner) Mike (Brown) and Marvin have been great to him. That's why this is shocking. This is really his last parent that has died."

Thurman was raised by his paternal grandmother, Betty Thurman. His mother, Joyce Bland, left Thurman at the age of two months. Bland died in a car accident in 1993. His father, Otis Thurman, died in 2003 at the age of 41.

Thurman was kicked off the team at Georgia after several off-the-field arrests and incidents in the spring of 2002, his freshman season. He attended Georgia Military College and eventually returned to the Bulldogs.

Thurman, a second-round draft pick in 2005, led the Bengals with 148 tackles as a rookie.

— The Dayton Daily News and Associated Press contributed to this story.