Rogers: ‘I smoked pot every day in NFL.’
Charles Rogers admitted on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that he smoked marijuana every day during his three years in the NFL.
He’s a small clip of the segment (via the Detroit Free Press):
This is a classic example of a player who just wasn’t dedicated to developing his game in order to become great. Rogers had all the talent in the world, but he clearly wasn’t willing to work on his craft and excel. I’m not about to suggest that marijuana derailed his career because 1) I don’t have enough facts to make a generalized claim like that and 2) something tells me it was a collection of things that contributed to Rogers being a bust, including drugs, a poor work ethic and injuries.
I just hope he’s the minority and that there aren’t more players like Chuck Rogers, who smoke the hippie lettuce on a regular basis. I’d like to believe that more players are dedicated to the game than he was.
To say I am not shocked doesn’t really do that phrase justice.
Rogers is the classic case of a pampered athlete that thinks he doesn’t have to work for anything. I remember seeing him in an Atlanta airport last year prior to the start of the 2008 NFL season and laughing in my head and how far he has fallen. It is a shame that someone with that much natural talent let it all fall apart instead of making something of himself.
You may not be prepared to make the claim that smoking pot on a daily basis derailed his career, but the people I’ve known through my life that smoked pot every day were neither motivated nor energetic.
This is not to say that an athlete (or anyone, really) can’t partake once in a while and still lead a productive life. They can. But I think the daily usage definitely had something to do with why Rogers was a washout.