Report: NFL to suspend several players all season for gambling
Indianapolis Colts cornerback and return specialist Isaiah Rodgers is among a “handful” of NFL players expected to receive season-long suspensions for gambling, ESPN reported Wednesday.
The Colts confirmed earlier this month that one of their players was being investigated by the league for his betting activity.
“We are aware of the NFL’s investigation, and we will have no further comment at this time,” the Colts said in a statement June 6.
SportsHandle.com reported that a Colts player was the subject of an investigation for placing “hundreds” of bets, a “considerable” number coming from inside the team’s practice facility. The player placed some bets on his own team, the report said.
Rodgers, 25, was a sixthround pick out of UMass by the Colts in 2020. He has appeared in 45 games (10 starts) and has 90 tackles, 10 passes defensed and three interceptions. He has returned 61 kickoffs, averaging 27.0 yards per return with a TD.
Wide receiver Calvin Ridley, then of the Atlanta Falcons, was suspended for the 2022 season for betting on NFL games while he was away from the team. He was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars last fall and reinstated by the league last March.
In April, the NFL suspended five more players for violating its gambling policy. Detroit Lions receiver Quintez Cephus and safety C.J. Moore and Washington Commanders defensive end Shaka Toney were handed indefinite bans for betting on NFL games. Detroit receivers Jameson Williams and Stanley Berryhill were given six-game suspensions for betting on non-NFL events from inside an NFL facility.
Detroit has since released Cephus, Moore and Berryhill.
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New leader for players’ union named: Player representatives concluded their secretive search for a new leader by electing Lloyd Howell, the former chief financial officer of consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, as executive director of the NFL Players Association, the union announced.
Howell will succeed DeMaurice Smith, who announced in October 2021 that this would be his final term.
The union said Howell’s tenure will begin “in the coming weeks to ensure a smooth transition of leadership.”
During the process that ended in Howell’s election, the NFLPA did not publicly identify candidates or comment on the specifics of the search, frustrating some in and around the sport.
The NFLPA’s executive committee considered former players Domonique Foxworth, Kellen Winslow Sr. and Matt Schaub for the job, but they were eliminated from consideration earlier this year, according to several people familiar with the process. The players also passed over a group of internal candidates that included NFLPA officials Don Davis, Teri Smith and George Atallah.
Howell becomes the fourth full-time executive director in
NFLPA history, following Ed Garvey, Gene Upshaw and Smith.
Former quarterback drowns: Ryan Mallett, who spent five seasons in the NFL as a quarterback after a standout college career at Arkansas, died Tuesday. He was 35.
The death was an apparent drowning, the Okaloosa County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office announced. First responders were called to a beach in Destin at 2:12 p.m. after a group of people were spotted struggling to make their way back to the shore. Mallett was in the group, police said, and was not breathing when lifeguards pulled him out of the water. He was pronounced dead at a Destin hospital.
Since last year, Mallett had worked as a teacher and head football coach at White Hall High School in Arkansas.
Mallett, who was selected in the third round of the 2011 draft by New England, threw for
1,835 yards, nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 21 games over five NFL seasons. He also played for Houston and Baltimore. He took his final
NFL snap in 2017. In 2021, Mallett played in the developmental Spring League.