Calvin Ridley stepped away from the Falcons in midseason to tend to his mental health. The NFL has suspended him for next season for betting on NFL games in his absence. A once-glittering career is now in question.
Gambling on your sportâs games â even if youâre not playing that sport at that moment â is the third rail of professional leagues. Itâs keeping Pete Rose out of Cooperstown. It has now rendered the heir apparent to Julio Jones persona non grata for 2022, and the Falcons need every asset they can find. They canât play Ridley because heâs banned. They canât trade him, either.
Wrote Commissioner Roger Goodell: âFor decades, gambling on NFL games has been considered among the most significant violations of league policy warranting the most substantial sanction.â
This wasnât an exaggeration. We old-timers recall Paul Hornung and Alex Karras â then two of the NFLâs most illustrious players â getting docked for the same season for placing bets. That was in 1963. No NFL player can argue that he doesnât know the rule. Itâs the one rule every player does know.
We can quibble that the NFL, which has a franchise in Las Vegas, is seeking to have it both ways: Itâs OK for an average Joe/Jane to bet on our games, but the guys who play it canât. But if thatâs hypocritical, itâs hypocrisy for a reason. The worst thing that can happen to any sport is for the credibility of its results to be called into question.
Goodell banned Tom Brady, maybe the NFLâs greatest player, for four games in the wake of Deflategate. The NFL may do some silly things, but itâs serious about propriety and the appearance thereof.
More Goodell: âThis is the responsibility of every player, coach, owner, game official, and anyone else employed in the league. Your (meaning Ridleyâs) actions put the integrity of the game at risk, threatened to damage public confidence in professional football, and potentially undermined the reputations of your fellow players throughout the NFL.â
Ridley took to Twitter to defend himself. âI bet $1,500 total. I donât have a gambling problem.â
Then: âI know I was wrong but Iâm getting one year LOL.â
Prospective employers in need of a receiver in 2023 might recall that little LOL.
Michael Garafolo of the NFL Network reports that Ridley bet on Falcons games. The NFL denies that âany inside information was used or any game was compromised in any way.â
Ridley erred egregiously. To his credit, he didnât deny it. Goodell praised him for his promptness in attending a hearing and his admission heâd bet on the NFL. Didnât mitigate the sentence, though. Heâs gone for a year, though he has the right to appeal.
The Falcons are rebuilding. One way or another, Ridley could have been a key part of that. He could have returned for next season and given Matt Ryan the No. 1 wideout he lacked in 2021. He could have brought some draft picks in a trade. Canât do either now. ESPNâs Michael Rothstein reports that Ridleyâs contract is off the books for 2022, so the team gets $11.1 million off its capped-strapped payroll for next season. Thatâs something, I guess.
Ridley will turn 28 in December. Receivers donât age as quickly as running backs, but they do age. (This just in: We all age.) He wrote on Twitter heâll be in even better shape when he returns. Maybe he will. But heâs about to go 22 months without playing an NFL game in what should have been his NFL prime. Thereâs nothing to LOL about here.
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