Former Patriot Michael Floyd Signs with Vikings

Jimbodandy

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I think you are barking up the wrong tree. He already had his Chris Carter chance. He's on his third Chance minimum. Maybe more as no telling how often home town cops let him go in high school or ND cops when he was in college.
This is not the right way to look at this at all. Sure, maybe he has some kind of serious problem that he never solves. And I don't fault anyone for the opinion that someone like this (multiple offender) isn't worth the risk/distraction/etc. But the "He already had his come-to-Jesus moment" line of thinking is misplaced. Many of those facing issues with addiction or dangerous behavior in general have many false moments of clarity before the real one finally happens. Assuming that someone won't change just because they failed before is not good. Sometimes it really is the 10th rock bottom before that guy changes his life for good. Some of us here are that guy.
 

Captaincoop

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This is not the right way to look at this at all. Sure, maybe he has some kind of serious problem that he never solves. And I don't fault anyone for the opinion that someone like this (multiple offender) isn't worth the risk/distraction/etc. But the "He already had his come-to-Jesus moment" line of thinking is misplaced. Many of those facing issues with addiction or dangerous behavior in general have many false moments of clarity before the real one finally happens. Assuming that someone won't change just because they failed before is not good. Sometimes it really is the 10th rock bottom before that guy changes his life for good. Some of us here are that guy.
You're absolutely right about this, and furthermore - why should any of us care how many chances he gets? There are two sides to this - his own recovery from addiction (if that's what is going on), and the Patriots' business decision to sign him. At some point, the risk will be higher than the reward with Floyd from a football standpoint if he doesn't get his issues under control. The Patriots have decided that, for them, that point has not arrived. The Cardinals were in a different position with regard to their playoff hopes, his contract, and his history with the team, so they chose differently.

I don't see any value to a "how many chances does he deserve" conversation. From a football/financial standpoint, each team is going to assess that question from their own perspective. From a personal standpoint, the answer is "as many as it takes".
 

j44thor

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This is not the right way to look at this at all. Sure, maybe he has some kind of serious problem that he never solves. And I don't fault anyone for the opinion that someone like this (multiple offender) isn't worth the risk/distraction/etc. But the "He already had his come-to-Jesus moment" line of thinking is misplaced. Many of those facing issues with addiction or dangerous behavior in general have many false moments of clarity before the real one finally happens. Assuming that someone won't change just because they failed before is not good. Sometimes it really is the 10th rock bottom before that guy changes his life for good. Some of us here are that guy.
One thing when you do things that are detrimental to your health, I feel bad for those people and hope they get the help they need. My BIL is a semi-recovering drug addict.

Another thing when you put other people's lives in danger, even worse when you have access to so many options to avoid that situation. I'll take an Uber 15min from my house if I know I'm having some drinks. Michael Floyd also has access to the private NFL version of Uber. He may have a drinking problem but he certainly has a driving problem. He was extremely lucky not to have killed someone. Passing out at a traffic light with your foot on the brake is very lucky. Had he put his foot on the other pedal who knows how the story ends.
 

Ed Hillel

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The thought of DUI Floyd putting up a TD or two against Woody Johnson's team is interesting.

I have no issues with the signing whatsoever, but I wonder if the league is having ESPN make a huge deal of this story so the league can justify a quick suspension (also to distract from the Giants). I'm not sure how the CBA handles that, or how long an appeal would take, though.
 

tims4wins

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The thought of DUI Floyd putting up a TD or two against Woody Johnson's team is interesting.

I have no issues with the signing whatsoever, but I wonder if the league is having ESPN make a huge deal of this story so the league can justify a quick suspension (also to distract from the Giants). I'm not sure how the CBA handles that, or how long an appeal would take, though.
That would be quite the turnabout from using Deflategate as a way of NOT talking about Ray Rice, Sheldon Richardson, Josh Brown, etc.
 

Harry Hooper

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That would be quite the turnabout from using Deflategate as a way of NOT talking about Ray Rice, Sheldon Richardson, Josh Brown, etc.
The many NY fans working in ESPN productions don't always wait for instructions from NFL HQ.
 

Ed Hillel

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That would be quite the turnabout from using Deflategate as a way of NOT talking about Ray Rice, Sheldon Richardson, Josh Brown, etc.
Eh, the shine of PATRIOTS BAD probably is brighter than NFL BAD on this one. Comments sections in the related articles would seem to confirm that.
 

Dahabenzapple2

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This is not the right way to look at this at all. Sure, maybe he has some kind of serious problem that he never solves. And I don't fault anyone for the opinion that someone like this (multiple offender) isn't worth the risk/distraction/etc. But the "He already had his come-to-Jesus moment" line of thinking is misplaced. Many of those facing issues with addiction or dangerous behavior in general have many false moments of clarity before the real one finally happens. Assuming that someone won't change just because they failed before is not good. Sometimes it really is the 10th rock bottom before that guy changes his life for good. Some of us here are that guy.
And yet most never stop and never change - I have many friends like that or maybe the change/true bottom hasn't happened yet. Sure *seems* like Floyd has a problem (that's a bigger reading than I even had way back in the day), but it's up to *him* to self-diagnose that problem. Once/if he does that, he has a chance/shot to get clean/sober, get help, etc.
 

Mr. Wednesday

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I think you are barking up the wrong tree. He already had his Chris Carter chance. He's on his third Chance minimum. Maybe more as no telling how often home town cops let him go in high school or ND cops when he was in college.
I doubt he got much leeway at ND. Relations between SBPD and ND students are strained at best.
 

mauf

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I don't mean now as in he has to fly to AZ today but what is the likelihood he is able to extend his hearing past the playoffs?
There is approximately a 100% chance he won't be tried before the Super Bowl.
Ben Volin says that Floyd's next court date is in late February so there will be no resolution in this case until after the Super Bowl.

When all we had were the criminal charges and Floyd's not-guilty plea, there was no doubt that Floyd would be allowed to play. Are we sure that's still true now that the video is out there? Seems like Goodell could draw his own conclusions based on that, particularly if it includes any admission by Floyd that he had been drinking.
 

Gunfighter 09

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Florio smartly points out that the Cardinals might have a league rules violation problem on their hands with Floyd's DUI, since he likely started drinking on the team flight back from Miami and that is against league rules. It opens up a couple possibilities. First, that Goodell could try to make an example of Floyd with a longer or more hastily applied suspension to show teams that letting a drunk guy get off of the team flight and into a car is a very, very bad thing. Or, in another scenario, Goodell could show Floyd some leniency for cooperating with an investigation that hammers the Cardinals for breaking the team rule. After all, the Bidwells are not blood or married relations to the Rooneys or Maras, so they are likely eligible for real consequences from the Ginger Hammer of Justice.

The arrest happened shortly before 3:00 a.m. local time; the game against the Dolphins had ended roughly 11 hours earlier. He reportedly told police that he had one drink. He later said he had two drinks between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. local time. He also told several different stories about where he had the drinks before eventually claiming he drank wine on the flight back from Florida.

Floyd, who weighs 220 pounds, likely had to consume a significant amount of alcohol to generate a BAC reading that high, since alcohol percentage in the blood is influenced mainly by body weight. Which means that he possibly consumed plenty of alcohol on the plane.

Technically prohibited by league rules, players nevertheless find a way to get alcohol on the team plane. The no-alcohol rule arises in part from a desire to avoid incidents like the one that occured last week, when alcohol consumed while with the team may have contributed directly to the operation of a motor vehicle in an impaired state.

If/when Floyd resolves the legal case with any degree of responsibility (and it looks to be open and shut), he likely will face a two-game suspension from the league. In the interim, the Cardinals may be facing questions from the league regarding how players are getting alcohol on the plane — and why the team isn’t noticing that they’re drinking it, potentially in copious amounts.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/12/21/michael-floyds-bac-was-0-217-percent/


This is where we point out how severe the punishment would be if the Pats were caught doing this, right?
 

mauf

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Before this video surfaced, Floyd might reasonably have hoped his lawyers could make this DUI go away, but that seems unlikely now. If I'm his agent, I would want him to serve his 2-game suspension right away, so he can hit the free-agent market with this issue behind him. Wouldn't be surprised at all if Floyd issues a mea culpa and checks into rehab in the next day or two.
 
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The Needler

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Before this video surfaced, Floyd might reasonably have hoped his lawyers could make this DUI go away, but that seems unlikely now. If I'm his agent, I would want him to serve his 2-game suspension right away, so he can hit the free-agent market with this issue behind him. Wouldn't be surprised at all if Floyd issues a mea culpa and checks into rehab in the next day or two.
I don't see how any suspension (and if he pleads guilty it's like to be more than 2-games because Goodell also has "super-extreme" discretion above .15) would be on the Patriots. They'd cut him if he pleads guilty, and if he checks himself into rehab, he'd be unable to play through the end of his contract, so any suspension would be for his next team.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Before this video surfaced, Floyd might reasonably have hoped his lawyers could make this DUI go away, but that seems unlikely now. If I'm his agent, I would want him to serve his 2-game suspension right away, so he can hit the free-agent market with this issue behind him. Wouldn't be surprised at all if Floyd issues a mea culpa and checks into rehab in the next day or two.
Huh? How would they have made it go away? Once he's booked and it's in the police blotter - let alone in the newspaper - there's no more making it go away. The video doesn't change anything. It might hurt his chances to plea it down because it's now an example for the public. But I don't see how once he's been arrested, processed and court orders started being issued to draw blood, how a lawyer could make it disappear, or at least if one could, how it would change based on the video. These things going away involve the officer quietly driving him home and telling him to sleep it off. The best a lawyer could hope for after he's had blood drawn is some kind of issue with evidence or testing.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Sheldon Richardson was suspended one game for drag racing with a kid and gun in the car while high.

Another good test case for the NY Standard.

Floyd's best case for free agency involves making some big catches down the stretch and in the playoffs, and winning a Super Bowl. Willingly taking a suspension now is not the way to go about accomplishing all that.
 

mauf

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Huh? How would they have made it go away? Once he's booked and it's in the police blotter - let alone in the newspaper - there's no more making it go away. The video doesn't change anything. It might hurt his chances to plea it down because it's now an example for the public. But I don't see how once he's been arrested, processed and court orders started being issued to draw blood, how a lawyer could make it disappear, or at least if one could, how it would change based on the video. These things going away involve the officer quietly driving him home and telling him to sleep it off. The best a lawyer could hope for after he's had blood drawn is some kind of issue with evidence or testing.
I was thinking some kind of pre-trial diversion where the prosecution agreed to drop the case if Floyd kept out of trouble for some specified period of time. If the case were disposed of without a conviction or an admission, it would be hard for the NFL to take action.

Last I knew, Marshawn Lynch had a weapons case from several years ago in upstate New York that had been continued indefinitely without a finding, so it definitely happens that prosecutors decide that pursuing open-and-shut cases isn't worth their time -- particularly when the defendant has moved away and no longer poses a risk to the prosecutor's community.

Having a video of Floyd's arrest makes it much less likely that something like this would happen -- you wouldn't want to be the prosecutor who dropped this case if Floyd kills someone in a drunk-driving accident two years from now, even if it's not in your community.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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I was thinking some kind of pre-trial diversion where the prosecution agreed to drop the case if Floyd kept out of trouble for some specified period of time. If the case were disposed of without a conviction or an admission, it would be hard for the NFL to take action.

Last I knew, Marshawn Lynch had a weapons case from several years ago in upstate New York that had been continued indefinitely without a finding, so it definitely happens that prosecutors decide that pursuing open-and-shut cases isn't worth their time -- particularly when the defendant has moved away and no longer poses a risk to the prosecutor's community.

Having a video of Floyd's arrest makes it much less likely that something like this would happen -- you wouldn't want to be the prosecutor who dropped this case if Floyd kills someone in a drunk-driving accident two years from now, even if it's not in your community.
I'm not sure what case in NY you're talking about and can't find anything on it. Link? He was charged with felony gun possession in CA in 2009, pled it down and served a three game suspension.

Once Floyd was booked the best result would be pleading it down to something lesser than the Super Extreme DWI Shitshow. It was never completely going away. The video makes no impact on that. His BAC was recorded as well over double the legal limit and a court order was needed to get it. He wasnt getting off with diversion.
 

Ed Hillel

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Before this video surfaced, Floyd might reasonably have hoped his lawyers could make this DUI go away, but that seems unlikely now. If I'm his agent, I would want him to serve his 2-game suspension right away, so he can hit the free-agent market with this issue behind him. Wouldn't be surprised at all if Floyd issues a mea culpa and checks into rehab in the next day or two.
You think Floyd is gonna give up a million bucks or so at this point, between salary and playoff share? Two games salary this year is likely going to be significantly more for him than next, unless he turns into Randy Moss the next 3-5 games.
 
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Reverend

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Why do you have to bother posting such racist nonsense is beyond me. You should try better next time.
If one more person aggressively announces they don't understand irony and just assume the worst about their fellow posters instead of asking for clarification, I may lose my shit.
 

snowmanny

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It's so interesting that things like a football player punching a girl in the face and causing multiple fractures or a young guy (not a veteran dreaming of the fight) so drunk he's fast asleep at the traffic light is suddenly regarded as so much worse once we actually see the punch or the stupor on video. What are we all expecting to see? Tom Arnold says he has a video of Trump saying the N-word the C-word and the R-word and boy if we ever saw it we'd be so disgusted.

Whatever. I admit that I've lost all perspective when it comes to the Patriots and I say let him drink whatever he wants on the parade float in February and anyone can do whatever they want to him in March.
 

mauf

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I'm not sure what case in NY you're talking about and can't find anything on it. Link? He was charged with felony gun possession in CA in 2009, pled it down and served a three game suspension.
I stand corrected -- the weapons charge was in California. I guess I was thinking of the earlier hit-and-run in Buffalo, where he wasn't charged.
 

Hendoo

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Living out here in Phoenix... Here are a couple thing you might find interesting:
First Indian school and Thomas roads are major streets that run east west in Phoenix. There is no intersection. He had no fucking idea where he was.

Second the word out here is that he will get 6 months in jail not 45 days. This is considered a 2nd time super extreme DUI in Arizona because he has a prior DUI conviction within seven years (it doesn’t matter what type of prior DUI the conviction was, only that the new charge is a super extreme.) The jail sentence for that is 6 months, which could be a stint in tent city or home arrest depending on what the judge thinks he deserves.

I'm guessing the league will make him serve their suspension after his jail time. So these games before his court date are likely his last for quite some time. Plus he will have no preseason to learn a new system if signed to a new contract anywhere.
 
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NDame616

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I don't see how it's in Floyd's best interest to serve and suspension/jailtime/rehab NOW and "start fresh" next year. The best thing for him is to play as any games possibly with the best QB of all time, on probably the best team in the NFL, in hopes he can leverage that into a "see, I can still play" contract next season. Obviously his value will take a hit because of the many OUIs, but if he can at least play 4+ games with Brady, show he's useful, then maybe his career won't end this year.
 

joe dokes

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Longish term, his best course is to play (or whatever the patriots have in store for him for the next 6 weeks) and (most importantly) stay out of trouble in NE. THEN, within 5 minutes of the end of the season, check into rehab, so that by the time his court proceedings begin, he is either in, or post-rehab. That is the only type of action that a judge *might* take into consideration in sentencing or the prosecutor plea negotiations (to the extent there's any discretion).

And in the cynicism dept....if he was still a Cardinal, he'd have a better shot at getting some sort of non-maximum penalty from the AZ authorities. Not that he'll get jacked up because he isn't, but the local hero discount is off the table.
 
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Hendoo

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The 6 months and other penalties are mandatory for 2nd time super extreme DUI in Arizona so he certainly seems to need rehab, but it won't reduce his sentence.
 

Section30

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I hope the Patriots are prepared for this to be the "big story" in the two weeks leading up to the Superbowl. ...assuming they make it that far ;-)
 

Jed Zeppelin

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I hope the Patriots are prepared for this to be the "big story" in the two weeks leading up to the Superbowl. ...assuming they make it that far ;-)
I'd be thrilled if that's the big story, as it would mean there were no crushing injuries in the next four games and that they aren't playing the Giants.
 

snowmanny

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I hope the Patriots are prepared for this to be the "big story" in the two weeks leading up to the Superbowl. ...assuming they make it that far ;-)
It would be a devastating distraction the likes of which we've never seen.
 

moondog80

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Belichick says he wasn't aware of Floyd's BAC until yesterday.

My guess is Floyd plays zero snaps for the Patriots.
 

joe dokes

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The 6 months and other penalties are mandatory for 2nd time super extreme DUI in Arizona so he certainly seems to need rehab, but it won't reduce his sentence.
Maybe it would facilitate a plea to something less than "Super Extreme"; or reduce the length of the post-incarceration penalty (probation, etc.) A judge would have to accept a plea, but those are the sort of things that might sway a prosecutor to allow him to plead to something that might require less jail time.
 

moondog80

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Why does the BAC level matter in terms of changing his status as a player? Either you are OK with playing a player who had a DUI or you aren't.
I think most people make a distinction between someone who maybe had 3 drinks instead of 2 and someone who had 11 or however many Floyd had to get into that state. Neither is good, but I'd worry a lot more about the latter being on the road. The state of Arizona definitely thinks it matters, hence the harsher penalty.
 

DJnVa

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Belichick says he wasn't aware of Floyd's BAC until yesterday.

My guess is Floyd plays zero snaps for the Patriots.
Do you think there's a BAC limit to the Patriots signing players coming off a DUI?

It's weird, and I likely won't express this right---signing the guy is one thing, but cutting him when you find a specific BAC could lead to questions like "So, a BAC of .150 would have been okay? That's not bad enough?"
 

moondog80

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Do you think there's a BAC limit to the Patriots signing players coming off a DUI?

It's weird, and I likely won't express this right---signing the guy is one thing, but cutting him when you find a specific BAC could lead to questions like "So, a BAC of .150 would have been okay? That's not bad enough?"

Obviously they don't have a BAC threshold. But when it falls into the legal category of "severely impaired", they probably look at that differently. And Belichick has gone out of his way to say they didn't know that when they signed him.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Obviously they don't have a BAC threshold. But when it falls into the legal category of "severely impaired", they probably look at that differently. And Belichick has gone out of his way to say they ddin;t know that when they signed him.
Did he go out of his way or did a reporter ask him? Then again, I guess giving a straightforward answer to a non-football question is close enough to going out of his way for Bill.
 

DJnVa

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Obviously they don't have a BAC threshold. But when it falls into the legal category of "severely impaired", they probably look at that differently. And Belichick has gone out of his way to say they didn't know that when they signed him.
But he said he was aware of the situation. If that's the trigger, then he's cut today right?
 

NDame616

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Did ANYONE know how BAC until a few days ago? I'm assuming he got a breath test at the scene and they drew blood after and they waited for those results

So BB probably really didn't know how badly he was impaired