Team Captain Jabrill Peppers Admitting to Cocaine Possession is a Yet Another Terrible Look for the 2024 Patriots
Like I said when the Patriots activated Jabrill Peppers after he served a seven game suspension for charges of domestic violence:
... we've all got to tread lightly in these situations. The team. The media. Fans. Charming, sophisticated, sexually desirable (though unavailable) bloggers. Everybody. It's incumbent on all of us to act responsibly, not hop on our Jump to Conclusions mats, and let the justice system dispense justice.
But all that treading lightly, responsibility and conclusion-avoidance go right out the window when the accused stands up in court and admits to the charge. In Peppers' case, he's still fighting the charges he got violent with his female companion. But he's copping to one of the other charges:
Source - The Patriots’ $24-million safety Jabrill Peppers admitted to possessing cocaine ahead of jury selection for a trial on assault charges.
Peppers, 29, appeared in Quincy District Court Thursday morning with his lawyer where he admitted to possessing cocaine. But the Patriots captain still faces charges that he choked and then threw a woman down the stairs.
Defense attorney Marc Brofsky told jurors this morning that Peppers himself will testify. …
Police say they found a substance they believed to be cocaine in Peppers’ wallet during his arrest. Peppers admitted in court Wednesday that it was indeed cocaine. A possession charge was continued without a finding following Peppers’ confession.
I left out the details of what Peppers has been charged with. In part because they sound so horrible and I just rather not talk about them. They're in the link if you're interested. But also at this point, they are merely accusations. Legally speaking every accused is Not Guilty at this point in the proccedings. And stays that way until a jury decides otherwise.
Instead, I'd rather focus on what is not longer in dispute. That in the middle of a football season, in fact, in the middle of a six-game losing streak, a Patriots team leader was carrying blow around in his wallet.
To be clear, I'm not a Puritan when it comes to substance use. If some 29-year-old who's in the business of dealing and accepting massive amounts of physical pain wants to self-medicate with a little of the Devil's Dandruff, I think that should be his right as a free American adult.
Except it isn't. Not by the law. And not by the rules of the league the people paying him the $24 million belong to. It's way too soon to judge him on the DV. But a guy who admits to carrying Star-Spangled Powder around in his wallet like it's a gift card to Marylou's Coffee in the middle of a season is screaming out to be judged.
But to me, this is less of an indictment of him than it is of the organization that made him Captain and signed him for the 24 mil. Pepper's admission (I'm 90% sure there was at least one episode of Police Woman starring Angie Dickinson with the title "Pepper's Admission") is yet another example of how bad the culture of the Patriots was last season.
Bike rides through the locker room:
The team underachieving. Rookies like Javon Baker who contributed nothing all year missing curfew in London. Another rookie in Ja'Lynn Polk, missing a game late in the season with a vague injury, while walking around the locker room joking and laughing in front the media. Jahlani Tavai badmouthing the fans after being told not to badmouth the fans:
And of course, playing worse as the season went on.
A team Captain keeping not just any drug on him, but the dooshiest drug of all, for those times when he needs the occasional bump is just another symptom of a much bigger disease. One that seems to have permeated much of the team.
It's hard not to look at Jerod Mayo's friendlier, more understanding, approach - let's call it "Gentle Coaching" as tribute the hot new parenting approach that's turning a generation of preteens into incorrigible little monsters - and put all the blame on him. For sure, it feels like Mayo's management style contributed to it. But to be fair to him, the team was trending this way before he got the promotion. I lost track of how many times Jack Jones got suspended, only to get brought back and before re-offending. But Bill Belichick of the 2020s put up with a lot more than 2000-2019 would've ever stood still for.
What matters more than whether this lack of accountability, discipline and professionalism started on Belichick's watch or Mayo's. It's that Mike Vrabel has to get this bullshit buttoned up. And reinstall the same brand of leadership he brought here along with guys like Troy Brown, Tedy Bruschi, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison and the like. This nonsense has to end if the winning is ever going to begin.