For eight months, Josh McNary was a suspect and a defendant. Now, he’s just a football player again, and he said getting back to his day job helped him through a difficult offseason.
The Colts linebacker was charged with rape in January, causing the Colts to put him on the commissioner’s exempt list and keeping him out of the AFC Championship Game. But after he was found not guilty at trial by a majority female jury on Sept. 3, the Colts brought him back in on the practice squad, allowing him to get back to normal. They put him back on the active roster two weeks ago, and he said the faith they showed in him was important to him.
“Football has kind of been a saving grace and was kind of the constant that I could grab hold of through this event and regain some normalcy in my life,” McNary said, via Stephen Holder of the Indianapolis Star.
Despite the months spent clearing his name causing his career to be put on hold, McNary said a number of teammates made sure to stay connected. And while he didn’t discuss the particulars of the case, he did speak in general terms of the lessons he’s learned.
“I received a lot of support from throughout the team, people reaching out to me and telling me they know better than [to believe] the accusations, that it would only be a matter of time,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, you can kind of backtrack and think in hindsight about what you could have done. I could have stayed home. . . . There’s a lot of personal takeaways that I plan to implement in my life. Easy changes. Too many to pinpoint.”
Of course, McNary’s contract expired during the offseason, and the Colts didn’t bring him back until he was acquitted. But he’s also grateful for the chance to find something in his life that’s easy to understand.