One More Raiders Controversy: Player Cut Over Gun Video

Team releases former first-round draft pick Damon Arnette
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 9, 2021 7:11 AM CST
NFL Team's Tumult Continues, This Time Over Gun Video
The Las Vegas Raiders have cut cornerback Damon Arnette.   (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

The NFL has had plenty of controversies lately, and the trouble keeps escalating for one team in particular—the Las Vegas Raiders. First, the team lost coach Jon Gruden over offensive emails. Then it cut Henry Ruggs after he was charged with DUI after a fatal crash at mind-boggling speed. And now the team has cut cornerback Damon Arnette after a video surfaced on social media of him wielding a gun and making death threats, reports 24/7sports. Like Ruggs, Arnette had been a first-round draft pick of the Raiders in 2020, going 19th overall despite concerns he was a "character risk," per the Washington Post. The team says it worked with Arnette on all aspects of his life, on and off the field, but he struggled in both areas.

"Am I sick to my stomach right now on a lot of levels? Yes," says Raiders GM Mike Mayock. "There have been a series of bad decisions over the last year or so, but we can’t stand—we cannot stand—for the video of Damon with a gun threatening to take a life," he told reporters. "The content was unacceptable." Before the video surfaced, Arnette was embroiled in two legal controversies: He is being sued by a woman over an alleged hit-and-run accident that left her injured, and by a casino valet in Vegas who accused Arnette of spitting on him and poking him in the chest during a dispute, reports Deadspin. All in all, the Raiders "are in the midst of one of the most tumultuous seasons we've ever seen," writes Deadspin's Jon Hoefling. (More NFL stories.)

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