Former Browns receiver Braylon Edwards, a Michigan native, has made no secret about his dislike for the city of Cleveland specifically and the Commonwealth of Ohio generally. (And here come the “It’s not a Commonwealth!” comments.)
“There’s nothing going on in Cleveland,” Edwards recently said. “There’s no real estate. There’s no social life, no social networking. All the people who have something going on leave Cleveland. So Cleveland has nothing, and I came in there with a New York-type of essence. So what? That was the attitude I came in with. Like, this is who I am. They didn’t like the flash.”
Edwards may be regretting those comments soon, given that prosecutors in Cleveland soon will have to decide whether to charge Edwards with violating the terms of his probation -- and given that Municipal Judge Michelle Early would then have to decide whether Edwards indeed violated the terms of his probation by being arrested for DUI in New York.
“Someone who has as much to lose as you should not be standing in front of me,” Early said when placing Edwards on probation in January 2010, after he pleaded no contest to aggravated assault. “Situations like this are senseless. You have to make better choices.”
Media reports do not indicate the duration of his probation, the terms of which commonly include avoiding alcohol. If the probation lasted for nine months or longer, Braylon ultimately could be checking out the “social life” and the “social networking” in one of Ohio’s finer penal facilities.