If there’s anyone in the NFL who knows about second chances, it’s Donte’ Stallworth.
The former New England Patriots wide receiver was charged with DUI manslaughter in 2009 after striking and killing a pedestrian in the offseason. He was suspended for the entirety of that season, but the Baltimore Ravens took him in the next year.
So on Wednesday, WEEI’s “Dennis & Callahan” picked Stallworth’s brain on running back Ray Rice’s current situation.
“I think he’ll get a second chance,” Stallworth said. “I think there will be something out there that will give him a second chance. He made a horrible decision, and he’s acknowledged it. It’s something similar to my situation. I think that he’s got a lot of work to do, and he knows that. Naturally, he wants to get back to playing football. He’s a really good player, still young. He’ll be turning 28, I think, next month. … He’s still young, he’s still got some juice left in his tank, and I think he’s ready to get back and prove to society that he deserves a second chance as well.”
Stallworth also commented on running back Adrian Peterson’s case and added that he thinks both Rice and Peterson will be accepted into the league with time.
“I think at the end of the day, I can’t speak personally to Adrian Peterson‘s case because I don’t know him personally, but I do know Ray and his wife,” Stallworth told WEEI hosts John Dennis and Gerry Callahan. “And I know that they’re working to get back to trying their best to live a normal life as a family, as a couple, as mother and father and husband and wife. Ray’s a good man. And I say that without caution because of something of one instance that he did in his life doesn’t make him a horrible person. But he did make a horrible decision, and I think he acknowledges that, and he understands that it was a horrible decision. He was always a model citizen in Baltimore, that one of the things that he was always praised for in the community.
“He’s got a little ways to go to earn back the trust of the community and earn back the trust of the NFL fans. And if he gets the trust of an NFL team, then he’ll be playing.”
Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
