On March 7, 2022, as a member of the Atlanta Falcons, Calvin Ridley was suspended by the NFL, for betting on games during the 2021 season. On November 1, 2022, the Jacksonville Jaguars received the rights to Calvin Ridley in a trade with the Atlanta Falcons. And on February 15, 2023, Ridley applied for reinstatement to the NFL. Before all that, in October 2021, Ridley stepped away from football for mental health reasons. Of anything that has occurred with Calvin Ridley in the past year and a half, his stepping away from the game for mental health reasons is the most intriguing, on the surface, at least.
Calvin Ridley and His Mental Health: An All Too Familiar Trend
“You can walk away from it all, no strings attached.” That is a line from the 1994 movie, The Scout, where Al Brooks’ character, Al Percolo, a scout for the New York Yankees, tells Brendan Fraser’s character, Steve Nebraska, a phenom of a baseball player Percolo finds while scouting in Mexico. In the scene, Percolo is telling Nebraska, he does not have to pitch for the Yankees, even though it could cost Percolo his job. For the first time in the movie, when Percolo looks at Nebraska, he is more concerned with the person rather than the dollar signs he had seen throughout the movie. In the movie, we find out that Nebraska suffered trauma as a child and struggles with authority, anxiety, and pressure. What does this have to do with Calvin Ridley? Maybe everything.
Let me first acknowledge that I do not know Calvin Ridley, personally, at all. I do know some things about him however, or more specifically, about individuals like him. Having worked as a teacher in Florida, you learn a few things about your students. Where they come from. What they are taught. And (sadly), how some of the very institutions that are there to “help and support them,” fail. Coincidentally, Ridley grew up in Florida.
1:40. That is the ratio of social workers to caseloads, as told to me, by a worker at the Florida Department of Children and Family (DCF). For every one social worker, on average, they have 40 children and families/guardians they are working with. Obviously, the goal for each of those social workers is to help ensure the health, safety, and happiness of the children involved. How effective would one social worker be, trying to help 40 children and or families/guardians, at one time? I would say pretty ineffective, which, as a teacher I saw the ineffectiveness on a day-to-day basis. Calvin Ridley could easily be one of those children who have become one of those 40, who even as adults, still have difficulty with mental health, as a result of an overworked and overlooked system (especially by politicians, regardless of political affiliation), that deserves so much better to be able to help those who so desperately need it.
What many people may not realize about Calvin Ridley was as a freshman at the University of Alabama, Ridley was 21 years old. As a senior, at Monarch High School, in Coconut Creek, Florida, Ridley only played three games his senior year, because of a Florida State Law that prohibits anybody over the age of 19 years and 9 months, from participating in high school athletic competitions. Why was Ridley past the age limit for the State of Florida as it pertained to athletic competitions? And why was he a 21-year-old freshman at one of the best football schools in the country?
Calvin Ridley: The Early Years
Ridley spent a portion of his childhood in the care of DCF More specifically, in the care of an organization known as SOS Children’s Villages. Often times when a child is put into foster care, school is likely the last place they want to be and doing school work is likely the last thing they want to be doing. (According to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, trying to resolve your life and what is happening in it, is more important than being in school and trying to pay attention and solve math problems.) It is understandable that during an unstable portion of Ridley’s life, school was not a priority and likely lead to him being held back, which for anyone to be placed in DCF care, can be traumatic and unsettling. Eventually, Ridley was placed back in the care of his mother and siblings. I am not saying that being in foster care caused Ridley to bet on football games and I am not saying that his leave from the Falcons for his mental health was caused by his time in the foster care system, either… however, I would not be surprised if either incident was related to his time spent in the foster care system, either.
Ridley is far from the only athlete to have trouble with rules and giving into temptations. On the less serious side of the spectrum, I am referring to the “substance abuse issues” (and I mean that loosely), of the Josh Gordon’s and Dion Jordan’s of the world. On the more serious side of the spectrum, I am talking about the Lawrence Phillips’s of the world.
Who Was Lawrence Phillips?
Phillips was a very talented running back out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He was taken in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft, with the sixth overall pick by the then St. Louis Rams. After just a little over a year and a half with the Rams, Phillips was cut from the roster. This came after several run-ins with the law, and notably collapsing on the field prior to his final game with the Rams, because he was intoxicated. After the Rams let him go, Phillips signed with the Miami Dolphins, where he lasted two games before once again getting arrested, this time for assaulting a woman at a Florida nightclub. Phillips spent the 1998 season out of football entirely. In 1999 he amassed 1,021 yards and 14 touchdowns for the Barcelona Dragons of the now defunct NFL Europe. In the Fall of 1999, the San Francisco 49ers decided to give Phillips an opportunity and although he was able to stay out of legal trouble, his play on the field (especially his blocking ability) and work ethic were not NFL level. After what amounted to several temper tantrums, the 49ers released Phillips. Eventually, Phillips got an opportunity (again) three years later in the Canadian Football League with the Montreal Alouettes where he looked like the Lawrence Phillips of old (1,022 yards and 13 touchdowns), but was once again released because of his attitude and behavior. He signed with the Calgary Stampeders for the 2003 CFL season where he rushed for 486 yards and a touchdown, before he once again wore out his welcome.
Phillips committed several incidences of domestic abuse/assault over a three-year period (2005-2008), including a felony assault with a deadly weapon charge, which subsequently landed him in the California State penitentiary on a 10-year sentence, with seven years to serve. While in prison, Phillips was also convicted in 2009 on another assault charge which gave him another sentence of 25 years which was to begin immediately his 7 years-to-serve sentence ended. In 2015, Phillips was charged in the first-degree murder of his cellmate, Damion Soward. While awaiting trial, in solitary confinement, on January 12, 2016, Phillips was found dead in his cell. Phillips, like Ridley, spent time in the foster care system.
I do not think that Ridley is the next Lawrence Phillips–not even close. The only thing they have in common was they were both in a foster care system. I brought up Lawrence Phillips to get the point across as to what can happen to an individual who has unresolved mental health issues (mainly socially and emotionally). Phillips’ anger issues and snubbing of authority, likely stem from being in the foster care system and having unresolved emotions during that time. Issues he should have resolved as a child were never resolved and are what likely lead to his legal and professional troubles and, ultimately his demise. My question is did anyone not see this coming? The colleges who were recruiting him? The NFL teams that were looking to draft him? Maybe they did, but maybe, like Al Percolo in much of the movie The Scout, everyone saw dollar signs and not Lawrence Phillips the person who may have been too far gone already to have been helped, but that does not mean you do not try.
The Jaguars and Ridley
I am rooting for Calvin Ridley to be the dominant player he has and can be in the NFL. My father used to tell me, “When somebody does something questionable once, it is a mistake. But if they do the very same thing again, it’s not a mistake; it’s either they just do not care or psychologically, they are not alright.” Hopefully Ridley has learned his lesson and the betting incident was a one-time lapse in judgement. I hope that before he even steps foot on a practice field, that the Jaguars do their due diligence to ensure Ridley, the person, is ready to play up to his potential, and if he is not, that they are giving him all the support he needs to be the best player he is capable of being.
With that said, after having two of the top 20 receivers in receptions in the NFL in 2022, in Christian Kirk and Zay Jones, and assuming he is reinstated prior to the 2023 season, I look for Ridley to be a productive part of an absolute three-headed receiving monster, that will be an absolute nightmare for defensive coordinators to try and stop. With or without Evan Engram, this is still a receiving group that can take Jacksonville to the Super Bowl. If that is the case and Jacksonville wins the big one, I hope the Super Bowl MVP award goes to Ridley.
Main Photo: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
