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NFL Players With Most Arrests Since 2000

As with all of our arrest posts, we have to mention that NFL players are arrested at a significantly lower rate than the national average. But because they are constantly in the news, it can feel like the NFL has issues with crime but the data does not support that assumption. That being said, some players have become notorious for more frequent run-ins with the law, here are four of those players:

No. Arrests  

Player

10

Adam Jones

7

Kenny Britt

6

Aldon Smith

6

Chris Henry

 

Adam”Pacman” Jones has had ten arrests over the course of nine years. He is probably best known for an altercation in a Las Vegas Strip Club called Minx. While “making it rain” with rapper Nelly, Jones got in an argument with the manager. After Jones was evicted from the premises a gunman, who Jones claimed he didn't know, came into the club and wounded three people, including the manager. The jury believed the connection to Jones was clear and the court ordered him to pay $10.5 million to the manager who was paralyzed from the waist down. He has three other police encounters due to assault and one other related to guns. He also has four other arrests/charges due to alcohol and/or drugs.

 

Within a two year period Kenny Britt had encounters with the police seven times, mostly behind the wheel. He had one DUI but was found not guilty, he drove with a revoked driver's license, he falsified information on his driver's license application, and pled guilty to charges of eluding the police and reckless driving.

 

Chris Henry had six arrests between the years of 2005 and 2008. His arrests were mostly due to drugs, alcohol, and assault. He was in the NFL from 2005-2009 but died at the end of the 2009 season when he fell from a moving truck driven by his fiancee during a domestic dispute. After he died, the autopsy revealed that Henry had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain injury that is caused by numerous head injuries. Studies have shown that CTE can cause impulsive actions, aggression and poor judgment.

 

Aldon Smith also had six arrests, but Smith’s arrests were almost entirely due to the consumption of alcohol and drugs. Half of the arrests were from DUIs and the other three were from incidents involving alcohol and/or drugs.

 

Again it is important to note that the NFL has an arrest rate significantly lower than the general population for men between the ages of 20 and 39. While these players were all arrested more than the average, the vast majority never has a run in with the law. Here are how arrest stats have been affected by year and month.

 

Elise Reppond
Elise is a data scientist and a football fanatic. She was raised in Seattle where her love for sports grew as she followed the Seahawks, Mariners, and Sonics. After graduating high school, Elise attended High Point University in North Carolina for two years, then before her Junior year of college, she decided to transfer to the University of Washington for their undergraduate mathematics program. She graduated from UW in December 2017 then not long after completed the Data Science Immersive program at Galvanize in Seattle. Elise is looking forward to another competitive fantasy football season as she works on building a predictive model for NFL rushing yards.

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