If you had “Dwayne Bowe” in this week’s “Who gets suspended as part of this Friday bad-news dump?” pool, congratulations.
The Chiefs have announced that the team’s top wideout will miss the regular-season opener for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.
“Dwayne has been given a one-game suspension by the National Football League,” the Chiefs said in a statement. “We are disappointed in the situation and will miss him on the field, but we support the league’s decision. The club will have no further comment on the matter.”
The suspension most likely arises from last year’s arrest for marijuana possession, which was resolved in the court system by Bowe pleading guilty to reduced charges. Bowe’s lawyer declared in the aftermath of the arrest that Bowe was “100 percent innocent” (hey, it worked for O.J. Simpson), and Bowe blamed the incident on everyone being out to get him.
If, as it appears, Bowe received the one-game suspension even though he never actually pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana, the outcome shows that the NFL will disregard the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in a way that allows a player to escape significant criminal consequence, if the NFL wants to. Which sharply contradicts the picture painted by the NFL when clumsily defending the Ray Rice suspension.