The Aldon Smith thread

Originally posted by NinerSickness:

Originally posted by BrianGO:

He should have clarified.

"Those who don't have panties bunched up into their A-crack, know he is a nice guy."

You have really low standards for being a "nice guy."

Here's pretty much everything we know about Aldon:

1. Good at sacking QBs
2. Good at crashing cars while hammered
3. Likes to give grief to TSA employees

...Yep. I think that's enough to definitively call him a "nice you."

Signed,

-Enormous Homer

Not that it's any of my business, but you sure a feisty one.

Originally posted by Pillbusta:

Originally posted by crabman82:
agreed. i also dont see his rehab stint playing into it despite what goddell said last year. to me it was just lip service. i dont think its sets a good precedent to have a troubled player off the field decide he can take a few games off to get some help and escape punishment from the league. otherwise guys will be doing this all of time and picking and choosing which games to miss as they suddenly got all better the minute that big MNF game comes.

This is inaccurate! He might miss games but what Aldon and the 49ers did was very responsible and productive for Aldon. There is NO need to try and downplay it or minimize it in any way. It was a great thing that both he and the organization took initiative and got Aldon the help he needed. His rehab should play into the DUIs because he already lost those games and he got the help he needed. He voided 4 games there with a 5 game absence without the prompting of the NFL. Now the gun charges are a different issue. If they give him a sh** ton of games for that then so be it but no one can say that the paid leave didn't count! Take the money back in fines but you can't ignore the time he did

its not inaccurate at all. i think its great he took time off to better himself and hope he took it seriously. i was once an alcoholic so i know the battle a little bit, i have respect for him attacking his problem head on. but no where does the league owe him anything in terms of reducing his suspension. if he had a dui or two and thats it then yeah maybe but he has had other incidents aswell. ultimately i think we'll find out friday so all this specualtion can end hopefully. i think the crowd leveraging his rehab stint and thinking a game or two, or even none as suggested by some posters, are going to be pretty disappointed.

Originally posted by NinerSickness:
Wait... what the crap??? Too much "focus" on punishment as opposed to correcting behavior?

The punishment IS what corrects the behaviour. And it's not the NFL's job to correct his behaviour anyway. That's Aldon's job. It's the NFL's job to punish him.

This is not what Goodell said. Yes Aldon has to correct it but the NFL should help as well in guiding players in the right direction. This is why they have all these rookie symposiums

Originally posted by crabman82:
its not inaccurate at all. i think its great he took time off to better himself and hope he took it seriously. i was once an alcoholic so i know the battle a little bit, i have respect for him attacking his problem head on. but no where does the league owe him anything in terms of reducing his suspension. if he had a dui or two and thats it then yeah maybe but he has had other incidents aswell. ultimately i think we'll find out friday so all this specualtion can end hopefully. i think the crowd leveraging his rehab stint and thinking a game or two, or even none as suggested by some posters, are going to be pretty disappointed.

I can live with whatever the penalty is but I feel that he has done the time and gotten the treatment for the DUIs. Guns are a different issue. He should get dinged for that

Originally posted by NCommand:
You know, I'm starting to think he may not be suspended at all or at least minimally. Why? If Goodell is serious about correcting behavior and he's not about punishing players, the LAST thing you want to do is place a recovering alcoholic on idle for 8 games AFTER he's gone to rehab and is clearly in the best shape of his life, both mentally and physically. Why would you want to thwart that progress and put a STAR at risk for falling back into relapse while he sits at home and watches his team from afar?

I hope you're right, maybe that's why the Rice suspension was so lenient, the more he's not playing the more he may get the sudden urge to stiff arm someone..

Goodell has said in the past it's not about punishment he's concerned about, it's improvement. Whatever he decides in his mind he's doing it so that players will learn to be more accountable for their actions. I think Aldon has demonstrated that in many ways and Goodell will take that into account, ultimately I believe it will be a 4 gamer for him.

5 of which he already served. Otherwise, Kowboy you are talking about a 5 game self imposed punishment + 4 more. 9 games for the dumb azz mistakes aldon made? Unh unh. Best think F.O., Aldon's parents and Aldon did was self imposed missed games, Rehab, and now, he has public service of 8 Mondays during the season, picking up garbabage beside the freeway or some such. 9 Game suspension? Hell that's worse than taking HGH, cocaine, steroids, and other PEdS. I think he has served his suspension on his own,
)(very mature), is going to be doing public service. So maybe one game more...but I do think it will come with a stick. A big stick. If aldon gets in any more scrapes, no matter how trivial nor stupid, he misses the rest of the season. NOW THAT is something to keep him on the straight and narrow and a lot more severe than missing 4 more games.

Originally posted by KowboyKiller:

Originally posted by NCommand:
You know, I'm starting to think he may not be suspended at all or at least minimally. Why? If Goodell is serious about correcting behavior and he's not about punishing players, the LAST thing you want to do is place a recovering alcoholic on idle for 8 games AFTER he's gone to rehab and is clearly in the best shape of his life, both mentally and physically. Why would you want to thwart that progress and put a STAR at risk for falling back into relapse while he sits at home and watches his team from afar?

I hope you're right, maybe that's why the Rice suspension was so lenient, the more he's not playing the more he may get the sudden urge to stiff arm someone..

Goodell has said in the past it's not about punishment he's concerned about, it's improvement. Whatever he decides in his mind he's doing it so that players will learn to be more accountable for their actions. I think Aldon has demonstrated that in many ways and Goodell will take that into account, ultimately I believe it will be a 4 gamer for him.

because goodell hates the niners and aldon semi f**ked up this offseason. goodell gives no f**ks about helping aldon as much as he does about setting a standard for punishment that he will break for the right player. dudes get suspended all year or half a season for smoking weed but ray rice socks his wife and gets a 2 game suspension lol.

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:
5 of which he already served. Otherwise, Kowboy you are talking about a 5 game self imposed punishment + 4 more. 9 games for the dumb azz mistakes aldon made? Unh unh. Best think F.O., Aldon's parents and Aldon did was self imposed missed games, Rehab, and now, he has public service of 8 Mondays during the season, picking up garbabage beside the freeway or some such. 9 Game suspension? Hell that's worse than taking HGH, cocaine, steroids, and other PEdS. I think he has served his suspension on his own,
)(very mature), is going to be doing public service. So maybe one game more...but I do think it will come with a stick. A big stick. If aldon gets in any more scrapes, no matter how trivial nor stupid, he misses the rest of the season. NOW THAT is something to keep him on the straight and narrow and a lot more severe than missing 4 more games.

It's the repeat offenses that concern me, Goodell comes down much harder on those who have f'd up multiple times. I don't think he deserves that much but Goodell might. If he gets just 2 I'll be ecstatic.

Originally posted by Pillbusta:

This is not what Goodell said. Yes Aldon has to correct it but the NFL should help as well in guiding players in the right direction. This is why they have all these rookie symposiums

What Goodell says is media speak. It's packaged in a way to try to sound as bland and wimpy as possible. And the rookie symposiums aren't designed to correct bad behavior; they're designed to prevent it.

Aldon went through all that stuff and still acted like a moron. So a paid vacation in a rehab' facility isn't going to get through to the guy; losing game checks is what's going to get through to him. If this ends up costing him over a million dollars (which is just might), that hit to the wallet is going to be a pretty effective reminder because if he does it again it could end up costing him a lot more than that.

Originally posted by NinerSickness:

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
This is not what Goodell said. Yes Aldon has to correct it but the NFL should help as well in guiding players in the right direction. This is why they have all these rookie symposiums

What Goodell says is media speak. It's packaged in a way to try to sound as bland and wimpy as possible. And the rookie symposiums aren't designed to correct bad behavior; they're designed to prevent it.

Aldon went through all that stuff and still acted like a moron. So a paid vacation in a rehab' facility isn't going to get through to the guy; losing game checks is what's going to get through to him. If this ends up costing him over a million dollars (which is just might), that hit to the wallet is going to be a pretty effective reminder because if he does it again it could end up costing him a lot more than that.

he has already learned his lesson..paid time off or not

The NFL is an employer not a court of law. It isn't their job to judge their employees or meet out punishment. If I get a DUI, my employer does nothing. I must stand before court and the court gets to determine if I should be punished. Asking for employers to also punish criminals is unwise, as poverty often pushes people into crime. As others have noted, Aldon, sitting at home, is more likely to do stupid things than Aldon playing football.

Now having established what I believe is the baseline, there is a reason for the NFL to punish Aldon. Aldon is a spokesman for the NFL, and when he generates bad press, the NFL image is tarnished. That isn't true if a factory worker gets a DUI, but it is true for a public figure. For many companies, if you generate bad press once, you are fired, as a scapegoat if nothing else. For the NFL, they want to deflect blame by following a progressive ladder of punishment. With increasing levels of punishment that end in permanent termination, the NFL can try and maintain their image while continuing to have the best athletes play for them. So let's forget about the NFL punishing Aldon, let's consider it from a PR perspective. Aldon has helped the NFL by voluntarily joining rehab. It rehabilitates his image, plus it helps theirs. I think that would have been the end of things. But then there is the stupid bomb incident. Maybe they let it slide because he wasn't charged, or maybe they decide that it has hurt their image and they need to "do" something to improve it. The other side of the coin is that the NFL truly wants to let Aldon know that his current path will result in permanent termination from the NFL. They will probably communicate that next time will result in a 1 year ban. What they need to decide is if he will get the message if they don't punish him now by making him sit more games. On this, my guess is that commuting his ban due to time already off will still send the right message, plus show that they are being compassionate towards a player that has taken steps to correct his behavior.

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:

he has already learned his lesson..paid time off or not

Ok, so people who get pulled over for DUIs & go to a few AA meetings shouldn't have their driver's licenses revoked or pay any fines or go to jail because they "learned their lessons?"

What lesson exactly has Aldon learned? So far he's learned that if he crashes his car drunk he gets a paid vacation. Goodell can teach him that if he crashed his car drunk he'll get a humongous fine.

Originally posted by fryet:

The NFL is an employer not a court of law. It isn't their job to judge their employees or meet out punishment. If I get a DUI, my employer does nothing.

Of course it's the NFL's job to judge players & punish them. That's in the collective bargaining agreement. It's NFL policy to do so. Aldon signed up for just that when he signed his NFL contract.

I once had a manager who got a DUI, and my work fired him before he could ever come back. Just because your job wouldn't do anything about a DUI doesn't mean other jobs won't.

I wish they would just announce it already!