{"id":23053,"date":"2017-06-29T17:51:34","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T21:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnfl.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=23053"},"modified":"2017-06-29T17:51:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T21:51:34","slug":"jonathan-williams-escape-discipline-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/06\/29\/jonathan-williams-escape-discipline-nfl\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Bills Running Back Jonathan Williams To Escape Discipline From NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/W\/WillJo07.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonathan Williams<\/a><\/strong> will be available when the Buffalo Bills open the 2017 regular season at New Era Field on September 10th.<\/p>\n<p>NFL Network&#8217;s <strong>Ian Rapoport<\/strong> reported Thursday that the soon-to-be second year running back won&#8217;t be suspended by the NFL under the league&#8217;s substance abuse policy. This comes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/espn\/now?nowId=21-0664587760413184885-4\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">three weeks after Williams was found not guilty<\/a> of driving while intoxicated in Arkansas.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bills?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Bills<\/a> RB Jonathan Williams, recently found not guilty of DWI, was informed by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@NFL<\/a> he won&#39;t be disciplined under the substance abuse policy<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RapSheet\/status\/880448989220483073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 29, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Buffalo Bills Running Back Jonathan Williams To Escape Discipline From NFL<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The incident in question took place in the early morning hours of July 14, 2016. Fayetteville, AR police pulled Williams over after getting a call about a driver possibly operating a vehicle while impaired. Williams refused a breathalyzer test but showed signs &#8220;consistent with intoxication&#8221; during a field sobriety examination. Police then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/story\/0ap3000000674596\/article\/bills-rb-jonathan-williams-arrested-on-suspicion-of-dwi\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The not guilty verdict in the case likely arose from there not being an official blood alcohol content reading. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tmz.com\/2017\/06\/08\/jonathan-williams-not-guilty-drunk-driving\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Per TMZ<\/a>, Williams&#8217; lawyer <strong>Shane Wilkinson<\/strong> stated that the prosecution &#8220;simply didn&#8217;t have enough evidence to prove he was intoxicated.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Under the <a href=\"https:\/\/nflpaweb.blob.core.windows.net\/media\/Default\/PDFs\/Agents\/2016SOAPolicy_v2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">league&#8217;s policy and program on substances of abuse<\/a>, players who receive a first-time drunk driving conviction are subject to a two-game suspension. Williams likely would have faced such a penalty in the event he was found guilty. But his acquittal paved the way for him to receive no discipline from the league.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old Williams made a minimal contribution to the Bills backfield during his rookie season. He appeared in 11 games and finished with 27 attempts for 94 yards and a touchdown. His lone score came in a 41-25 loss to the New England Patriots on October 30th.<\/p>\n<p>Buffalo took Williams in the fifth round of the 2016 NFL Draft, selecting him 156th overall. The move drew surprise in some circles considering Williams <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-football\/story\/arkansas-razorbacks-rusher-jonathan-williams-to-miss-season-with-foot-injury-081715\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suffered a season-ending foot injury<\/a> during his senior year at Arkansas. But the previous year, Williams led the Razorbacks with 1,190 rushing yards and added 12 touchdowns, earning second-team all-SEC honors.<\/p>\n<p>Expectations are that Williams will receive a higher work load in 2017. With the Patriots <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/fantasy\/football\/news\/bills-mike-gillislee-signs-offer-sheet-with-patriots\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signing Mike Gillislee to a restricted free agent tender<\/a>, Williams is the favorite to assume the number two running back role behind <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/McCoLe01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeSean McCoy<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/596019222\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/596019222?et=zvGzPUnQQk9i1n8P1vqQcw&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=eOn1v6PrjApEv7-D-uXJLHswouocBIdNwne4JqW6Ziw=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second-year Buffalo Bills running back Jonathan Williams will not face discipline from the NFL after being found not guilty of driving under the influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":23057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,36],"tags":[177,61,2712,831,40],"class_list":["post-23053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bills","category-nfl-news","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-football","tag-jonathan-williams","tag-lesean-mccoy","tag-nfl"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}