Atlanta Falcons WR Calvin Ridley has been suspended from the National Football League for at least the 2022 season for gambling on professional football.
Ridley, a 2018 first rounder and 2020 2nd-team All-Pro, took a step back from football this season for mental health reasons.
— CALVIN RIDLEY (@CalvinRidley1) October 31, 2021
Apparently, all his action took place after he left the team. I'm sure there are many rules and regulations prohibiting that, but it's not like he was actively playing while gambling on football. I think that's a little different from if fill-in-the-blank active-active player got into the parlay game.
The Tom Brady hypothetical really got me thinking!
I'm genuinely glad that society has evolved ever so slightly where people kind of care about mental health issues and that umbrella. At the same time, I feel like people have started using it as a blanket "you can't ask any questions, or hold me accountable" statement and this is coming from someone whose brain is trying to destroy them. In this situation, it appears the timelines add up and that Ridley didn't take his absence because of gambling, but I think it's alright to be a little suspicious given this news and the fact that he missed 12 games this year without a physical injury. He might be a falcon, but this seems fishy.
I'm torn like Natalie Imbruglia; I love to gamble. Hell, on Thursday night, I lost nearly 3x what I paid for a Celtics ticket on prop-bets, but I don't play for the Boston Celtics, nor do I have access to any legit insider information.
But I don't think professional athletes should be able to gamble on their respective sports, just like I don't believe Congresspeople should be allowed to trade stocks. The latter is a much more serious issue, but to me, this is just typical hypocritical NFL. Since legalized sports gambling became much more prevalent in 2018, the NFL has leaned into gambling content harder than Craig Biggio at the dish. (He's the all-time HBP leader for people who don't get my solid-to-elite references, although, upon fact-checking, some 1800s era ballplayer named Hughie Jennings technically holds the record) If you watched even 180 seconds (3 minutes) of commercials during the 2021 NFL season, you probably saw two ads of Gronk bumbling on the phone with an USAA agent and four for some combination of DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars Sportsbook, and BetMGM, etc. I'm looking at this annoying square-jawed nothing...her ad makes me never want to eat chicken again.
It's the same with any pregame show.
Inside the NFL does their picks against the fucking spread!
It's just a weird gray area; what Ridley did is "wrong," but given the mental health stuff and the league raking in money from gambling companies, this seems like an overkill suspension. I know there's precedent, but it's like if someone who owned a dispensary kicked their 16 year old out for smoking a joint. What did you expect would happen?
— Doz #HireDozo (@DozonLife) March 7, 2022
I don't support drug testing for the majority of jobs. Who fucking cares if some lifeless corporate stooge has a couple edibles on a Friday night while listening to Bananarama, reminiscing about the 80s? But I understand why we don't want firefighters, pilots, or surgeons blowing trees.
An NFL player using inside information or gambling on a game they're playing in completely tarnishes the "integrity of the game," but spoiler alert, the league has little to no integrity to begin with!
But is a year + ban really necessary? I get trying to lay the hammer down to scare people away; that's why Ray Rice got two games.
Calvin Ridley isn't paying the ultimate price for his transgression, but it's gonna fucking hurt worse than any backdoor cover.
In reality he lost $11.1 million!
All this for (allegedly) $1500.
I guess the Falcons have known about this since February, which answers the "why wouldn't you trade Ridley when his name has been circulating in rumors since November?" question, but gun to my head, his suspension should be somewhere around 8-10 games.
You gotta love Ridley trying to just tweet through this, thank God the Pats didn't trade for him...but if the price is like a 7th rounder right now, I feel like you gotta kick the tires.
P.S.
I sorta agree with what Pres said about who cares if you're betting on your own team, but also think it's a slippery slope. I guess I'd be way cooler with Ridley getting a year suspension if "men" who hit women got punished the same way. Fuck Roger Goodell.
Double P.S.
I've seen may too many attempts at this hacky joke in the past three hours.
Triple P.S.
I've seen this a million times too, but it's actually pretty fucking crazy/sorta funny and worth the RTs and likes.
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