When wide receiver Santonio Holmes was arrested for marijuana possession in 2008, the Steelers sat him out of a game without suspending him.
Running backs Le’Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount were both charged with the same crime last week with Bell also picking up a DUI that he never saw coming, leading some to wonder whether the Steelers would follow their own precedent this time around. Both played in last week’s preseason game because coach Mike Tomlin said sitting them down wouldn’t have been a punishment.
On Monday, Tomlin said that that “everything’s on the table” regarding that punishment, while adding that the team wouldn’t publicly disclose any discipline. He also said that Bell and Blount would be “dealt with swiftly,” although team president Art Rooney II sounded like a more deliberate approach was in the works.
“There are parts of this that are going to have to go through the legal process and the league review process,” Rooney II said, via ESPN.com. “We’ll just have to deal with it as that process unfolds.”
The two players would also be subject to league discipline, although that’s not likely to come for quite some time as the charges make their way through the legal system.