Three NFL players were placed on the commissioner's exempt list this past weekend: Seattle Seahawks cornerback Terrion Arnold, Denver Broncos outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper, and Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs. All three will be unable to play while they are on the list, but they still get their game checks. It's the NFL's version of paid leave.
All three have been charged in criminal court. For Cooper and Jacobs, the charges are in cases that include allegations of intimate-partner violence. Arnold is charged with playing a role in a violent robbery and kidnapping in Florida.
The commissioner's exempt list was a little-used tool until 2014, when video came out showing then–Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice hitting his fiancée in an Atlantic City elevator and fans were outraged that Rice had been suspended just two games for what happened. Since then, the list has become a tool used by the NFL to get players off the field before a full investigation can be done. It also usually involves a player getting a lot of negative media attention and typically, though not always, involves intimate-partner violence. As Mike Florio put it over at ProFootballTalk: "The league regards the move as not punishment (even though it absolutely is)."
A placement on the list, unlike with a suspension, doesn't come with a definitive end date. When each player is removed from the list is, unless you are NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, impossible to know. The placements were announced just before teams had to cut down their rosters to the 53-player maximum.
Josh Jacobs
For Jacobs, the announcement came two days after he was charged in court with misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor criminal damage to property. Per the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Hobart-Lawrence police originally sent the case to prosecutors with charges of "battery, criminal damage of property, disorderly conduct, each with domestic abuse enhancers, as well as strangulation and suffocation, and intimidation of a victim."
According to a court document filed by prosecutors and shared on social media by The Athletic's Matt Schneidman, police got a 911 call on May 23 reporting a disturbance between a man and a woman at a Hobart (Wisc.) home. When officers arrived, the talked with a man who said he lived there; he told them there was no fight. While officers were there, dispatchers told them that the girlfriend was at a neighbor's house.
The woman told police that she and Jacobs got in an argument after she caught him talking to other women on his phone. This led to a physical fight over her own phone, which went on for "several minutes," according to the court document. Jacobs, who still had her phone, got in one of his vehicles and drove away, so she hopped in another one of his cars and followed. They both drove until they ended up back at the house, the court record said, where the argument continued. At one point, the girlfriend told police that she tried calling 911 using a second phone of hers, but the service seemed to be down. She walked out the door and went toward the garage, when Jacobs, per the document, "grabbed her and threw her to the ground and she struck her head, suffering an injury."
While she was on the ground, Jacobs took her second phone. The woman asked Jacobs's friend to call police, per the document, but he said he couldn't help her.
As part of their investigation, police said they got video footage from cameras within the garage that corroborated what the girlfriend had told them happened there.
Lawyers for Jacobs issued a statement emphasizing that prosecutors did not file domestic-violence charges against their client. Otherwise, they said they would address the criminal charges "in court, and not in the media."
Jonathon Cooper
Cooper was arrested twice in Colorado back in June. The first time was after he got in a fight with his then-girlfriend when she confronted him about possible cheating. He initially was charged with criminal mischief between $300 and $999 and domestic violence, both misdemeanors. Per the Denver Post, a felony strangulation charge was later added as well. The woman told Parker police that Cooper had at one point "grabbed her by the neck with one hand and lifted her off of her feet and up against the wall."
Following the arrest, protection orders were put in place that said neither Cooper nor his former girlfriend could be in contact with each other. But, according to court documents obtained by the Post, a day after the charges were filed, Cooper sent the woman "nearly 20 text messages," called her multiple times, and "appeared at her apartment door," which he knocked on for "five to 10 minutes." This triggered the second arrest, for violation of the protection order.
On Sunday, Broncos general manager George Paton said the team was taking what happened "very seriously" and that the team also would keep on supporting Cooper. Per the Post, Paton said: “Jonathon’s worked very hard to better himself and it’ll be good to have him in the building, be in meetings and just be a part of the team.”
Terrion Arnold
Arnold is charged with four counts of kidnapping and four counts of armed robbery. According to prosecutors, law enforcement believes that Arnold helped orchestrate an armed attack on three men, two of whom he believe robbed his Airbnb earlier in the year. (Police do not believe those men actually committed the robbery.)
Arnold was cut by the Lions within hours after his first court hearing in Hillsborough County, Fla. The Seahawks signed him Saturday to a minimum-salary contract, shortly before he was placed on the exempt list. Seahawks general manager John Schneider told reporters that Arnold had a great relationship with the organization and "the character, just, it just didn't really fit with the allegations and everybody we talked to."
