NFL – Braylon Edwards from the New York Jets arrested for DUI

by Stephen Lars on Sep.26, 2010, under Football, Sports News

Both the NFL and the New York Jets have made a significant effort to avoid these kinds of situations for their famous (and even the not so famous) professional football players. As a matter of fact, most teams, including the Jets, offer their players a discreet and professional safe rides program to keep this sort of issues from happening.

The Jets receiver could have avoided all this bad-press and the charges had he made a simple phone call. More then two thirds of the 32 NFL teams have their own safety program to avoid players or team members from driving under the influence. The NFL Players Association has its own program, so that each player is covered by the union, regardless of whether the team the play for has its own safe driving program or not. Matter of fact, even the NFL took a page from that book and implemented a similar program for its non playing employees.

Now, both programs were simply ignored by Edwards. When police detained him in the outskirts of Manhattan’s West Side, and gave him a breath test, he recorded double the legal limit. Way to raise the bar!

So what is the point of making all this institutional efforts to keep players from driving drunk, if at the end, the guys are going to take on their nice cars and drive anyway. At least get a taxi. You can afford it.

The Jests have hired a program called Player Protect. It is a service provided exclusively for professional athletes. Player Protect agents are either retired or current law-enforcement agents that are authorized to carry their weapons in all 50 states.

So not only do it is a driving issue, it also comes as a driver-bodyguard combo. Here is the thing; most of us don’t get these kinds of privileges when we go out partying. Yet the irony is that, those who actually get them, don’t necessarily use them.  It is not only their drunk ass behind the wheel that is in danger when driving under the influence; the security of others is the reason why these safe driving efforts have been made. It is still uncertain what charges Edwards might face. If that judge want’s to make an example out of him, he might be in some serious trouble.