Amani Bledsoe began last season on the shelf with a six-game PED suspension. The young defensive end will face a stiffer penalty this year. The NFL suspended Bledsoe for this season’s first 17 weeks, Field Yates of ESPN.com tweets.

The lengthy duration here stems from another PED policy violation, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL.com report (on Twitter). While the 2020 CBA lightened punishments for recreational drugs, PED penalties obviously remain in place. Bledsoe is currently a free agent; this second violation will make his path back to a roster rather difficult.

A former Titans and Bengals defensive end, Bledsoe did not see any game action last season. But he did stick around via a reserve/futures contract with the Falcons. But Atlanta waived Bledsoe last month.

This latest ban threatens Bledsoe’s career, seeing as he was an undrafted free agent who has played sparingly. The Oklahoma alum has made six career starts — four of them coming with the Bengals in 2020 — and caught on with Atlanta’s practice squad in November of last year. Bledsoe, 25, did enough to warrant a futures deal. But it is hard to envision a team picking him up as a free agent this year.

The Titans signed Bledsoe as a UDFA in 2019. He had worked as a contributor on a few late-2010s Sooner defensive lines. The 6-foot-4 defender has yet to record a sack as a pro.

The NFL has suspended free agent defensive end Amani Bledsoe for six games, per the transactions wire. The ban is due to a violation of the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero).

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Bledsoe previously lost a season of eligibility at the University of Oklahoma for an alleged PED violation. That may have contributed to him going undrafted in 2019. Bledsoe took the NCAA to court over that but wasn’t able to get the decision overturned.

Bledsoe went on to appear in 14 games for the Bengals in 2020 with four starts. That year, he logged 17 total tackles with two passes defensed. In 2021, he jockeyed between the Titans’ taxi squad and active roster. He finished out with five appearances, two starts, one pass defensed, and one tackle.

Per league rules, Bledsoe’s suspension will carry over if/when he signs with a new team for the 2022 season. Given the latest news and his lack of significant production over the last two years, it’s possible that teams will deprioritize Bledsoe and wait until the fall to audition him.