Pass rusher Smith’s long ban ends
Aldon Smith will be able to take part in team activities with the Cowboys after the NFL on Wednesday conditionally reinstated the pass rusher from an indefinite suspension for off-field issues.
Smith, who hasn’t played in an NFL game since 2015, will be able to participate in the Cowboys’ virtual offseason program starting next week. He can also meet with teammates and coaches.
The Cowboys, who lost sacks leader Robert Quinn in free agency, signed Smith to a one-year contract last month despite his uncertain playing status. Smith was reinstated after meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on a video teleconference last week.
Smith was drafted seventh overall by the 49ers in 2011 and had 14 sacks as a rookie. He was an All-Pro in 2012 when he had 191⁄2 sacks and the 49ers reached the Super Bowl. He had 44 sacks in 50 games during his first four NFL seasons with the 49ers with defensive line coach Jim Tomsula, now on the Cowboys staff for new head coach Mike McCarthy.
Smith had several legal issues as a player with the 49ers and Raiders. He was first suspended with the 49ers in 2014 before receiving a one-year ban in November 2015 with the Raiders. Smith applied for reinstatement to the NFL in 2016, but that decision was initially deferred.
The Raiders retained Smith’s contractual rights before releasing him in 2018 after San Francisco police issued a warrant for his arrest in a domestic violence case.
The Cowboys still have a suspended pass rusher under contract in Randy Gregory, who’s seeking reinstatement. Gregory was indefinitely suspended in February 2019 for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy, his fourth league suspension coming about seven months after he had been reinstated by Goodell.
Gregory slid to the Cowboys late in the second round of the 2015 draft after testing positive for marijuana at the NFL combine.
Baseball: The head of the agency that oversees the Oakland Coliseum told the Bay Area News Group that the A’s have informed him they had “no ability to pay” the annual $1.2 million rent on the facility. “They said because they haven’t used it, they were not able to generate revenue and they have no ability to pay,” Henry Gardner, the interim executive director of the Coliseum authority, said. “We recognize that we’ve all been upended in a number of ways. Maybe there are some things we are willing to negotiate and waive, but we can’t just say no rent.” The A’s have made the payment annually for use of the city- and county-owned baseball stadium and could face penalties for failure to pay. The A’s released a statement noting the authority hadn’t been able to make the Coliseum available to the team because of the local shelter-in-place directive as well as state and local bans on public gatherings of more than 1,000 people at city facilities.
Colleges: Stephen F. Austin received postseason bans for having low scores on the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate and agreed Wednesday to several sanctions including probation, scholarship reductions and the forfeiture of wins for the improper certification of 82 studentathletes. The football team won’t be allowed to participate in the 2020 postseason, the men’s basketball team can’t participate in the 2021-22 postseason and the baseball team will be prohibited from participating in the postseason in the spring of 2021 . ... The Kentucky-Michigan men’s basketball game scheduled for Dec. 6 in London has been postponed until 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic as part of a restructuring of their three-game series. The schools were scheduled to highlight the inaugural Basketball Hall of Fame London Showcase doubleheader at the O2 Arena. Michigan will now host the Wildcats on Dec. 4, 2021, in Ann Arbor before the schools meet in London one year later. Kentucky will host the Wolverines in Lexington on Dec. 2, 2023.
NBA: Teams are expecting the league office will issue guidelines around June 1 that will allow franchises to start recalling players who’ve left their markets as a first step toward a formal ramp-up for the season’s resumption, ESPN reported. Teams expect a similar timeline from the league on when they’ll be allowed to expand individual workouts already underway with in-market players to include more team personnel.