What Noah Spence Can Learn From Randy Gregory
By Brian DeFeo
Drugs are bad mmkay. Noah Spence learned the hard way how some bad life choices can hurt your career. Randy Gregory should be a prime example of what he shouldn’t do in the early stages of his NFL career.
Noah Spence, Buccaneers second round pick, is entering his first NFL training camp this week. If he is paying any attention to the rest of the NFL he should follow Randy Gregory on what not to do.
Noah Spence had a few issues relating to drugs in college that really hurt his draft stock. Originally a member of Ohio State, Spence played ahead of third overall pick Joey Bosa and was a top prospect. If he remained at Ohio State there is a definite chance he would have been taken much higher in the draft. He was fantastic at Ohio State racking up 7.5 sacks in 2013 but that’s when the problems began.
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He was caught twice taking ecstasy, and even tried lying about it by saying someone slipped it into his drink. Because of this he was released from Ohio State and no other big time schools would touch him. He ended up at FCS Eastern Kentucky and continued to dominate the league.
Yes, the competition was not the same but he did have 11.5 sacks and dominate the competition. Had he not been kicked out of Ohio State he could have been a top ten pick and not fallen to into the second round. Some people ranked him as the best pure pass rusher in the draft, and in a league where top pass rushers are very limited he easily could’ve been taken earlier if not for the off field concerns.
Randy Gregory had a similar draft experience in 2015. He was a top prospect coming out of college and should have easily been a first round pick. But he did one of the dumbest things in NFL Draft history and tested positive for marijuana at the combine.
There are three things you are supposed to do at the combine perform drills, answer questions, and pass a drug test. Everyone knows that, and Gregory not being able to pass it at the first steps of his NFL career was a really bad sign.
He wasn’t suspended at all during his rookie year for the failed test but this off-season has failed twice and is now has been suspended for a potential 10 games this year, after already being out the first four. He’s definitely not off to a good start and many teams want nothing to do with him once his contract expires.
There are plenty of other players in the NFL that have had issues with drugs in the past including Johnny Manziel, Josh Gordon, and Laremy Tunsil. Tunsil is the only one who hasn’t been suspended but he fell in this year’s draft because of a leaked video on his Twitter.
Gordon is getting what, his fourth chance now? I’m glad he’s getting another chance because he’s too good of an athlete to have his talents wasted. Manziel may never step on the field again after all the problems he’s having. Many NFL players have had issues with marijuana but not many, I’ve heard at least, have had issues with ecstasy.
Noah Spence hasn’t had any issues since then but I’m really hoping he doesn’t turn into a Randy Gregory. Once the NFL money and the big lights are on him anything can happen but let’s hope he can focus on football and not illegal activities.