On Sunday night, as the Vikings played the 49ers in prime time, the Falcons and the Patriots quietly did some business, with New England acquiring offensive lineman Quinn Ojinnaka.
The fact that Ojinnaka has been suspended for the first game of the season made the move curious. The fact that Ojinnaka’s suspension arose from allegations of domestic violence has prompted some league insiders to wonder whether and to what extent ownership signed off on the move.
The concern flows from the fact that, in 1996, the wife of Robert Kraft reacted negatively -- and loudly -- after the Patriots selected Christian Peter in the draft, who had been arrested numerous times while in college, including on at least one occasion for grabbing a woman by the throat in a bar. So the Pats flushed the fifth-round pick, cutting him only days after picking him.
“I wonder if Mrs. Kraft will get involved again,” a league source observed regarding the team’s decision to trade for Ojinnaka, who allegedly fought with and spit (spat?) at his wife after Mrs. Ojinnaka confronted her husband about one of his Facebook friends. She claimed that Ojinnaka “threw her on some stairs before tossing her out of the house.”
The question becomes whether the Patriots will toss this fifth-round pick from the 2006 draft out of their house, just as they did with their fifth-round pick 10 years earlier. Then again, the bigger question is why they let him in in the first place.