The NFL will use its commissioner’s exempt list to sideline Jabrill Peppers. After an arrest near Boston over the weekend, the veteran Patriots safety is officially on paid leave, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter tweets.
Not only is Peppers barred from Patriots games, he is ineligible to practice while on the list. This marks the second usage of the commissioner’s exempt list this season, following Browns rookie defensive lineman Michael Hall.
Peppers was hit with charges of assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, strangulation and the possession of a class B substance. He is accused of choking a woman and shoving her head against a wall outside his Braintree, Mass., apartment, the Boston Globe’s John Ellement, Christopher Price and Camilio Fonseca report. Identifying herself as Peppers’ on-and-off girlfriend, the woman said the DB “took off her clothing and put her outside” his apartment.
Peppers pleaded not guilty to each of the charges and was released on bail, according to the Globe. The arrest occurred shortly after Peppers’ 29th birthday. The unnamed woman said she Peppers were “being intimate when her phone rang,” angering the veteran defender. The woman then accused Peppers of pushing her out of his bedroom. This led to Peppers allegedly pushing the woman down a flight of carpeted stairs in a hallway, according to the Globe.
Peppers denies he choked or pushed the woman, telling police she “appeared to be drunk” and acted erratically, blaming this for her fall down the stairs. Police did not smell alcohol on her breath, per the Globe. The woman declined to be hospitalized, but paramedics provided her an icepack. Police observed scratches on her knees and indicated redness on the right side of her forehead, according to the Globe, which adds a police search of Peppers’ apartment produced a bag Peppers allegedly confirmed was cocaine. Peppers soon informed Patriots HC Jerod Mayo of the development.
The Patriots took the atypical step, for a home team, of downgrading Peppers from questionable to out the day before their Week 5 Dolphins matchup. While Peppers is out of the picture for the time being, he is tied to a recently signed extension (three years, $24MM). The 2025 guarantees on that contract ($2.5MM of the safety’s $4.5MM base salary) are at risk. A personal conduct policy suspension can still come out of this arrest, despite Peppers being placed on the exempt list. Hall was hit with a five-game ban upon his reinstatement.
Weird situation. But it still amazes me that Peppers is automatically put on the Commissioner Exempt List right away, but members of a certain other Team ( we all know which team) players are allowed to play with criminal charges hanging over them? Humm.
The league’s inconsistencies around suspensions is concerning.