Calvin Ridley's career in serious jeopardy after committing NFL's biggest sin | Goodbread

Let's be clear about this, because apparently Calvin Ridley wasn't: the National Football League's abrupt change of stance on sports wagering — once a wholesale shunning, to now embracing it in every way from placing a franchise in Las Vegas to launching official partnerships with sportsbooks — does not in any way extend to its players, coaches, or anyone even remotely associated with league operations.

In nine years at NFL Media, I routinely had to pass online training courses on NFL gambling policy, which boiled down to a red-light, no-no for team or league employees of any kind, as a means of maintaining competitive integrity.

For the NFL, it's a thick line in the sand, and one that comes with education and training for players. That's what makes the former Alabama star wide receiver's suspension for the 2022 NFL season for gambling on NFL games so confounding.

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And he might not recover from the damage he's done to his career.

Ridley was already on a leave from the Atlanta Falcons so he could, in his own words, focus on his mental wellbeing. He played just five games last season before stepping away from football; and according to a statement from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, his gambling occurred over a five-day stretch in late November when he wasn't with the team.

From that, it would be easy to extrapolate that his leave for mental health reasons and his decision to violate one of the NFL's most sacred internal rules are entirely separate matters, making the gambling open to criticism in a way the mental health issue is not.

Let's not quite go there without more facts.

But without condemning Ridley in a Pete Rose kind of way, this much is certain: his career with the Falcons is no longer what's in jeopardy. Now, his career in pro football altogether hangs in the balance.

It was already highly questionable whether he would ever play for the Falcons again. It was reasonable for the club, even while supporting his mental health in any way possible, to question whether he could again be the budding NFL star he'd once been. At the very least, his leave from the team damaged his trade value. But 31 other NFL teams certainly would have been glad to give him a fresh start whenever he was ready for one.

Now, however, the gambling suspension complicates his career in a much more profound way. Fair or not, it's no longer just his window to return to the Falcons that's closing; it's his window back to the NFL.

By the time he's reinstated — and according to Goodell's statement, a return for 2023 isn't even promised — Ridley will have been out of the NFL for at least a season and a half. At 27, he's still plenty young enough to rediscover his skill set, but the Falcons likely won't be the only team unwilling to take that chance. If his trade value was damaged before, it's now practically nil. And if he does catch on with a team for 2023, his earning potential won't be derived from his prolific talent. Nobody will pay him for the 1,374-yard season he posted in 2020. They'll pay him wait-and-see money, which will be a fraction of what his second contract was once on track for.

Ridley posted to Twitter on Sunday, presumably in reference to his suspension: "I learn from my Ls."

That will be one lesson hard-learned.

Reach Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Calvin Ridley's NFL career in jeopardy for NFL's biggest sin: Gambling