Jeff Gladney is still with the Vikings and we shouldn’t be surprised
By Adam Patrick
Despite his recent arrest for allegedly assaulting a woman, Jeff Gladney remains on the Minnesota Vikings roster.
Before Mike Zimmer arrived in 2014, the Minnesota Vikings led the NFL in player arrests from 2000 to 2013 with 44.
With Zimmer in charge for the last seven years, the perception has been that the Vikings are no longer near the top of the league when it comes to player arrests. But they’re actually still among the teams with the most guys who have been arrested since 2014 with 11.
Now, the majority of these arrests were a result of non-violent crimes (five for DUI and two for possession of marijuana), but it still goes to show that Minnesota doesn’t exactly have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to getting into trouble off of the field.
What does the past say about the chance of Jeff Gladney to remain with the Minnesota Vikings?
When it comes to the crime that Vikings cornerback Jeff Gladney was recently accused of committing (domestic violence), the team has experienced two cases that are somewhat similar since Zimmer became their head coach.
In 2014, there was the infamous Adrian Peterson arrest in which he was charged with crimes related to child abuse. Then in 2018, former Minnesota wide receiver Cayleb Jones was arrested and charged with misdemeanor domestic assault.
Peterson ended up remaining with the Vikings until the 2017 offseason and Jones was kept on the team after his arrest, but he didn’t end up making it past the final roster cuts before the start of the 2018 season.
So when we look at Gladney and the fact that he’s still taking up a spot on Minnesota’s roster, no one should really be surprised.
Is this the correct decision? Well, that depends on who you ask. But with Peterson, the Vikings proved that public opinion doesn’t hold much weight for them when it comes to the decisions they make with their players.
There were behavior concerns about Gladney before he was drafted and Minnesota recently found out why. But the Vikings also knew what they were potentially getting into with the corner when they used a first-round pick on him.
With it now being almost two weeks since Gladney turned himself in to the police, the possibility of Minnesota keeping him on their roster certainly seems much higher than it did when the news of his alleged crimes was first reported.
Whether the Vikings give him another chance or not though, Gladney will definitely be facing a suspension from the NFL in the near future. A violation of the league’s current personal conduct policy due to domestic violence comes with a suspension of at least six games for first-time offenders.