Florida NFL teams among Bad Boys with law enforcement
Which NFL franchise’s players are the worst behaved?
According to a review of arrest data since 2000, you don’t have to go far down the list to find teams from Florida.
Online gaming site FlashPicks released the study ranking the Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, and Cincinnati Bengals as the teams with the most arrests among players. According to the report, the Vikings had 60 arrests in the past 24 years.
Then, come the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have had 45 players arrested since 2000, the fourth-most among NFL franchises.
Four of the Jaguars arrests came in London in 2018 when the team was preparing to face the Philadelphia Eagles at Wembley Stadium. The players were arrested for allegedly skipping out on a bar tab at a London club.
Since Doug Pederson was hired as head coach of the Jaguars on Feb. 4, 2022, the Jaguars have had three arrests.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were tied with the Seattle Seahawks for eight in the NFL with 39 arrests. The Miami Dolphins were 11th with 36 arrests. The league average was just more than 33 arrests.
According to USA Today data, the Buccaneers have had two arrests since 2019, while the Dolphins’ last was in 2019.
The Houston Texans were last on the list with 17 arrests, partially impacted by the Texans entering the league in 2002, two years after the study began.
Of the 1,075 arrests, nearly a quarter (23.9%) were for DUI.
There were some positions more frequently arrested. Wide receivers led the way with 182 arrests, while cornerbacks had 149 arrests.
The study states, “Data was taken from USA Today, which compiled professional NFL player arrest reports from public records and media publications.”
Interestingly, the two cities with multiple teams all came in below the league average but with some distance between franchises. The Jets had 30 arrests among New York teams while the Giants had 24 in the same period. The Chargers had 30 while the Rams had 23, although the Chargers called San Diego home until 2017.
The San Francisco 49ers and Oakland-turned-Las Vegas Raiders had 30 arrests during the report’s period. The Raiders shared the Bay Area with the Niners until 2020.
Cole Pepper has covered professional, college and high school sports in Florida since 1996. Originally from the Kansas City area, Pepper came to Jacksonville to launch a sports radio station, the first step in a career that has included work in radio, television, and online reporting. He was the studio host for the Jaguars radio network for 15 seasons and now consults for JAX USL, the group bringing professional men’s and women’s soccer to Northeast Florida. You can reach Cole at colepepper1@gmail.com or on Twitter @ColePepper.
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