The last time we heard about Aldon Smith was June of last year with yet another alcohol-related arrest that served to keep him out of the NFL. It was his third DUI arrest. A year prior, he was arrested for domestic violence and checked himself into rehab. On that same day, the Raiders officially cut ties with Smith, who they had placed on their reserve suspended list. But clearly, that would not be his rock bottom.
The former All-Pro pass rusher was already serving an indefinite NFL ban and his inability to get clean and get his life right had it looking like he may never return.
Smith has been away from the spotlight the past six months, which in his case may be the best news considering the headlines he had been making the past couple years.
What Smith has been doing of late is working out at Jay Glazer’s Unbreakable gym. TMZ caught up with Glazer this week and asked him about Smith’s progress:
“Aldon has now been sober for a while and he’s been helping a lot of our vets with their sobriety. That’s the biggest thing you’ve got to do is be of service to other people and he got that. We’ve given a lot of guys second chances. He deserves it as much as anybody I’ve been around.”
It’s been a while since we saw Smith actually take a football field. The now 30-year-old played his last game for the Raiders in November of 2015 before Roger Goodell placed the indefinite suspension on him. Those suspensions are usually reviewed at the start of the next league year, but Smith had not shown he was able to get clean in that time so he was kept out. And obviously, it only got worse for Smith after that.
Glazer thinks Smith has turned the corner and is ready to return to the NFL:
“Yeah, I really do. Look, we’ve worked with a lot of guys and tried to give them their chance. A lot of them I worry about, a couple of guys I haven’t and he’s one of them. He’s like ‘hey, it’s not my life anymore, it’s not who I am… .’ The fact that he knows to that I’ve got to help out other people, that’s what I’m most proud about. I’m proud of Aldon Smith.”
Glazer went on to say that Smith is currently at around 285 pounds which is considerably larger than his playing weight when he was last in the NFL and said that he is “just shredded. He is a freak of nature.” This, of course, is something you’d expect the guy who runs the gym to say, but if NFL teams are interested in finding out for themselves, they could always have him in for a workout.
Gruden has spoken many times about giving guys second chances. He gave one to Darren Waller who was also to the point of being suspended for an entire year for substance abuse, and that paid off both for the Raiders and for Waller. Maybe get Aldon Smith in the room and see if it sounds like he is genuinely ready for his second shot.
[vertical-gallery id=60514]
[lawrence-newsletter]