Four games into Damon Arnette’s second season with the Raiders, the team cut ties with him. To grow tired of a first-round pick and cut him that quickly is usually a sign he had used up all his chances.
Since then, things have only gotten worse for Arnette.
Last January, he was arrested on charges of pulling a gun on a valet. And on the same day those charges by the Clark County DA, Arnette was again arrested in Florida on drug charges.
According to the TMZ report, Arnette was pulled over twice within a few hours of each other. The first time he was cited for driving with a suspended license.
The officers gave another person in the car permission to drive the car, but a few hours later, Arnette was again spotted driving the car and was thus pulled over again.
This time they searched Arnette and the police claim to have found a small bag of what was believed to be cocaine. At which point he was arrested for drug possession.
Arnette hasn’t been able to go long between incidents, either involving weapons or vehicles.
The incident that ended his short tenure in Las Vegas was a video he posted on Instagram in which he was wielding several firearms and threatening to kill someone.
And when he was released, it was revealed that during Arnette’s rookie season, he had crashed four rental cars in a month’s time.
When the Raiders drafted Arnette, he came with some red flags for incidents that occurred during his time at Ohio State. But the team was convinced enough that he had grown up and put his troubles behind him. Or perhaps Jon Gruden was convinced.
I asked GM Mike Mayock shortly after Arnette’s release if there were signs of this type of behavior and Mayock admitted he had “significant concern” with Arnette’s character.
As someone who covered Arnette as a Raiders player, he was a bit of a strange guy, albeit a fun person to speak with. Hopefully, he can get the help he needs to clean up his act.