Randy Gregory Suspended Again

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Randy Gregory has been suspended again.

The embattled Dallas Cowboys defensive end was suspended indefinitely Tuesday for violating the league’s substance abuse policy and the terms of his conditional reinstatement, the team announced.

This is Gregory’s fourth suspension since being selected by Dallas in the second round of the 2015 NFL Draft.

Gregory was cleared and reinstated in July 2018 following a year-long suspension in 2017. He was also banned twice for 14 total games in 2016 for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.

The 26-year-old was entering the final year of his rookie deal. In his first full season as a pro in 2018, Gregory played in 14 games, recording six sacks and 25 tackles.

In four years in the league, Gregory has been suspended for more games (30) than he’s played (28)

Don’t expect the Cowboys to give up on Randy Gregory.

Also, they shouldn’t. 

Unfortunate news arrived for the veteran defensive end the week of the 2019 NFL Combine, with the league levying yet another indefinite suspension against him for violating the terms of his conditional reinstatement. Reports were that Gregory failed a mandatory drug screening, of which he was subject to upwards of a massive quantity of 10 per month. He was also required to remain in therapy — which he did and continues to do — along with a list of other league-imposed rules. What followed was the best year of his NFL career and one filled with a lot of promise for the future, but he’s now forced to hit the reset button.

There’s still a chance Gregory takes the field in 2019 for Dallas, and with the 26-year-old readying to apply for reinstatement with the goal of being on the field for training camp when it fires up on July 26 in Oxnard, CA, the ball is in the league’s court on if they’re truly genuine about their newfound respect for managing mental illness — along with the accompanying declaration they’d begin to research the positive effect of marijuana thereof. 

Few individuals have been as victimized by the league for marijuana use as former running back Ricky Williams, the former fifth-overall pick whom the New Orleans Saints traded away an entire draft for – sans a second-round pick already traded away previously – along with a first- and third- round pick in the subsequent 2000 NFL Draft for the right to land his services. 

The outlook for Williams’ career was somewhere on Mars before he took a single snap as a professional, but with that came backbreaking pressure.

The former Longhorns phenom was diagnosed with clinical depression and social anxiety, and he’d turn to marijuana as a means of self-medication en route to eventually embracing holistic medicine on the whole to manage his conditions. In the end, his career would be marred by an escalating degree of suspensions due to repeated violation of the league’s substance abuse policy, which included a four-game suspension the preceded his decision to outright retire in 2004 along with an indefinite suspension in 2006 that he was forced to apply for reinstatement for one year later — after returning in 2005 from the aforementioned retirement.

The All-Pro would be allowed to return to the NFL after spending time in the CFL due to the ban south of the Canadian border, and went on to piece together solid years before hanging up his cleats for the final time in 2012.

If anyone knows what Gregory is up against — who suffers from bipolar depression and clinical anxiety — it’s Williams.

Once treated as a social outcast, in assessing the current landscape and destigmatization of marijuana around the country, it turns out he was simply way ahead of his time.

“I think the NFL — in a lot of ways — mirrors our culture for men in general,” Williams told me, speaking at SportsCon in Dallas. “Not even just for the most masculine men on the planet right now, [either]. It hasn’t been okay for us to seek help, but this is changing. I think that when your mental health is strong, your physical health and your athletic ability is going to go through the roof.

“I think that when players realize taking care of [their] mental health is going to [them] play well and be a better football player, you’re going to see even more change.”

Williams also offered a view on the league’s chronology of thought on the matter, made surprising when you factor in his clashes with the front office in New York.

“Most of the time I’m up here, I’m asked a question about marijuana,” he said, jovially. “Any big corporation kind of has to be behind the times. It’s public opinion, and I think public opinion has started to shift that the NFL is obviously talking about it in the public. I just think our whole country has come a long way in the past 15 years.

“The fact that before I was shunned and considered a pariah, and now ESPN invites me to talk about cannabis on television. We’re moving forward, and I think the NFL is eventually going to catch up.”

For the sake of Gregory’s football future, the sooner the better.

“We knew what the situation was when we drafted him,” head coach Jason Garrett said following news of Gregory’s latest suspension, via Jon Machota of The Dallas Morning News. “We fully support Randy. Randy’s a good young man. He’s had some issues that he’s been dealing with.

“He’s tried to deal with those issues head-on from Day One. He’s spent a lot of time getting professional help for his issues. He’s worked very hard. He’s serious-minded about trying to get back and be an established NFL football player, and he did a really good job for us this year after working through a lot of different obstacles.

“Unfortunately, he’s had a setback and won’t be with us in the near-term, but we’re going to continue to support him. He’s a good young man and he’s worked very hard to try and address some challenging issues. Again, our eyes were wide open toward the outset. We’ll continue to try to support him and try to provide the structure for him to be his best.”

There’s no better time than now for the NFL to make good on its recent promise to be more respectful for players who suffer from mental illness.

For a player like Gregory, who has never had a single off-the-field issue aside from trying to stay level with the use of a herbal solution now legal in many states, at a certain point it’s about looking him in the eyes and doing away with punishment in exchange for support — finally allowing him to continue doing the one thing he wakes up to do:

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