Another player joined the famed ranks of NFL players who have been fined for betting on the league’s games in early March. Calvin Ridley of the Atlanta Falcons is the player in question. He was suspended indefinitely for betting on NFL games during the 2021 NFL season, and he’s expected to miss the whole 2022 season.
Ridley, who missed the most of last season to focus on his mental health, revealed on Twitter that he wagered $1,500 on NFL games during his time off. The 27-year-old receiver is one of only a few NFL players to be suspended for gambling. Ridley will be only the fifth player in NFL history to miss a season due to gambling-related issues.
Before we look at each player and what happened to them after their suspensions, it’s important to note that the NFL has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to NFL employees betting on games. And given the variety of markets that can be found on the best NFL betting sites, we can’t blame NFL players for having a hard time fighting impulses that lead them to bet there.
Alex Karras (1963)
Many people may recall Karras’ name from his acting days rather than his NFL career. He played Mongo in “Blazing Saddles” and had prominent roles in “Webster”, a 1980s sitcom, and “Victor/Victoria”, a 1982 film musical. Before all of that, Karras was an AP All-Pro defensive tackle with the Detroit Lions in two of his first five NFL seasons. He was also one of the first two players in NFL history to be suspended for gambling. After confessing to placing at least a half dozen $50-$100 bets, Karras missed the 1963 season.
In the early 1960s, he was one of the most formidable defensive players in the league. Karras was 28 when he was suspended for a year after admitting to betting on NFL games with Packers running back Paul Hornung (the next on the list). Karras was advised by league officials to sell his financial interest in a Detroit-area pub prior to his ban, based on reports of gambling, among other things.
Karras was reinstated on March 16, 1964, after resuming his pro wrestling career after his suspension. He returned to the Lions for seven more seasons, earning his third All-Pro mention and fourth Pro Bowl selection in 1965. Despite having 100 career sacks and being named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s All-1960s Team, Karras wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame until 2020, nearly eight years after his death at the age of 77.
Paul Hornung (1963)
Karras wasn’t the only player that missed the 1963 season due to suspension. Former NFL MVP Paul Hornung was also suspended for a year after then-commissioner Pete Rozelle discovered Hornung had gambled up to $500 on NFL games.
Hornung’s sterling reputation, dubbed the ‘Golden Boy’, was unblemished despite his one-year suspension. An All-Pro kicker and running back prior to his suspension was restored into the NFL in 1964, along with Karras, and helped the Green Bay Packers win NFL titles in 1965 and 1966. The ‘Golden Boy’ returned to the Packers for three more campaigns, totaling 1,540 YFS and 18 TD before retiring at the age of 31 due to a neck ailment before the start of the 1967 season. He was a member of the Super Bowl I-winning Packers team, but he was unable to play due to a pinched nerve.
Hornung, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986, owns NFL records for most games with at least 30 points (twice) and 25 points (three times). He was retrospectively unhappy about his suspension when asked about it during later interviews, despite the fact that his reputation and career weren’t harmed as a result of his ban.
Art Schlichter (1983)
The Baltimore Colts selected Schlichter with the fourth overall pick in the 1982 NFL Draft. Before being suspended for the 1983 season, the former Ohio State standout tried 37 regular-season passes with the Colts as a rookie. After fourth-round choice Mike Pagel beat him to the line-up spot, Schlichter’s career quickly plummeted and he became deeply in debt due to gambling.
Schlichter began betting on horse races and then other sporting events while still in college. He transferred his gambling tendencies into his professional job, and things quickly spiraled out of hand. After losing roughly $500,000 betting on basketball games, Schlichter was suspended for 13 months. From January to March of 1983, he lost an astounding $389,000! As a result, Pete Rozelle, the commissioner of the NFL, suspended him for the 1983 season.
Following his suspension, Schlichter only played two more seasons in the NFL. Schlichter had been arrested in January 1987, when the Bengals sought to sign him as a backup to Boomer Esiason, for conducting an illicit, multimillion-dollar sports betting organization. As a result, Rozelle denied the agreement, and Schlichter never played in the NFL again. He did, however, have success in the Arena Football League, where he was awarded league MVP after guiding the Detroit Drive to victory in Arena Bowl IV in 1990. After wagering on several of the AFL’s games, he eventually retired from the league.
As a result of his gambling addiction, Schlichter has spent much of his life in and out of prison. After pleading guilty to charges of theft and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activities, Schlichter just finished a 10-year sentence.
Josh Shaw (2019)
Earlier than Ridley’s, the NFL’s gambling suspension that occurred in 2019 and caught the attention was when Roger Goodell suspended Josh Shaw for the NFL games’ wagering. The then-Cardinals defender was disqualified for the 2020 season. Shaw was on injured reserve at the time. Since his reinstatement on March 20, 2021, Shaw, who was a member of the St. Louis Cardinals at the time of his suspension, hasn’t appeared in an NFL game.
Shaw visited a casino in a ‘Sin City’ and placed unknown wagers on a variety of sporting events. Shaw said that he misinterpreted a 2018 Supreme Court decision that overturned a federal ban on sports betting.
Calvin Ridley (2022)
Ridley was suspended indefinitely by the NFL on March 7, and he’ll at the very least miss the whole 2022 season as a result. During a five-day period from Nov. 23 to Nov. 28, the Falcons’ receiver was discovered wagering on games.
Ridley had taken a break from the Falcons a few weeks before placing the wagers to cope with mental health issues. He wagered on games involving the Falcons despite the NFL announcing that he wouldn’t be playing when he placed his bets. Ridley announced on Twitter that he had placed a total wager of $1,500 on the games and that he didn’t have a gambling problem. In subsequent tweets, he downplayed the severity of his punishment.
On February 15, 2023, Ridley will be eligible to seek reinstatement.
