Banned CB Rodgers says bets made for others

TAMPA, Fla. — Broken-down Indianapolis Colts cornerback Isaiah Rodgers Sr., in his first interview since being suspended by the NFL for making a bet on his rep group, says that whereas bets were manufactured from his narrative, they were made for others and no longer himself.

Rodgers said the wagers, including some smaller ones and a $1,000 prop bet, were positioned from his online sports playing narrative. He said they were made for folk that lived in Florida, where online sports making a bet at that time remained unlawful.

“Ravishing attempting to relief family and traffic out, factual lustrous that it wasn’t steady at the time in Florida and it used to be in Indiana,” Rodgers advised ESPN.

Rodgers, citing steady reasons, declined to identify the folks that he says he positioned bets for.

“On the stop of the day I knew the foundations, I wasn’t purported to enact it and I acquired to raise what comes with it,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers used to be suspended on June 29 for violating the NFL’s playing policy. That very same day, he used to be waived by the Colts.

As phase of an ESPN “Exterior the Traces” be taught about at sports making a bet, Rodgers talked in regards to the wagers, the suspension and the device in which he’s been facing his season-lengthy absence from the sport.

In suspending Rodgers, NFL investigators sure that he had committed so much of offenses. He’d positioned bets at the Colts’ facility. Even worse, he’d bet on his rep group — something that under league guidelines at the time meant a one-yr suspension.

Since then, the penalty for a player making a bet on his rep group used to be increased to a two-yr suspension.

On the time of his suspension, ESPN reported that Rodgers had positioned more than 100 bets — including on Colts games — and most were within the $25 to $50 vary. One wager, particularly, stood out: a $1,000 prop bet on the over/under on speeding yards by Colts working attend Jonathan Taylorwhich Rodgers won.

“That file is correct, with it being $1,000, nonetheless that file wasn’t manufactured from my instrument,” Rodgers advised ESPN. “The $25 to $50 bets are precisely correct, nonetheless it completely used to be more crazy-leg parlays with factual $25 attempting to safe a crazy amount. Ravishing humorous bets. Nothing too serious. It used to be by no manner, ‘This bet here goes to change my existence.'”

Rodgers used to be asked why he would jeopardize the $850,000 wage he used to be space to fabricate all thru the 2023-24 season.

“I puzzled myself, too,” Rodgers advised ESPN. “But I notion I potentially wouldn’t safe caught, wouldn’t safe in agonize.”

Rodgers used to be taking a be taught about with his family shut to his Tampa-space house when Colts fashionable supervisor Chris Ballard called to voice that he had been waived.

“It is a name that you just by no manner truly desire, lustrous that a group that made your desires strategy correct is now the group letting you inch,” Rodgers said. “It used to be a heartbreaking moment at the time resulting from I used to be truly with my family within the store and I needed to spoil that data to them after I acquired within the automotive.”

Ballard issued an announcement at the time, announcing “the integrity of the sport is of the utmost significance” and that the Colts would “continue to educate our gamers, coaches and workers on the policies in verbalize and the most necessary consequences that will presumably occur with violations.”

Rodgers, in an apology on his social media accounts, owned as much as his transgressions, writing that he took “pudgy responsibility” and that he “let of us down that I care about.”

He said he had known for months that the suspension used to be coming — first listening to from his agent in gradual February or early March that he used to be under investigation by the NFL — nonetheless he kept the facts to himself. His mother, Kelly O’Neal, said she realized out in regards to the suspension in June from a file that aired on ESPN.

“I seen it coming across the underside of the hide hide,” O’Neal said. “My first notion used to be, ‘Used to be he OK?’ His future used to be so intellectual for him with the Colts, it used to be true there, and then issue.”

The NFL educates its gamers every yr in myriad ways in regards to the foundations surrounding sports making a bet. Gamers are forbidden from making a bet on NFL games, no longer allowed to inch to sportsbooks all thru the season and no longer allowed to verbalize bets of any kind whereas at a group facility or venue. There are academic movies sent to clubs and in-individual classes to familiarize gamers with the league policy. No player can whine ignorance of the foundations.

“It is our responsibility to half as great education as we are in a position to with as many folks as we are in a position to so that there isn’t any confusion as to what the foundations are,” said Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications.

Rodgers said he’d by no manner gambled before the 5-to-six-month duration all thru which he says he positioned more than 100 bets for others and that, in many ways, the suspension has been “a blessing.”

He’s been in a self-discipline to safe pleasure from Sundays as a “fashionable” football fan, gathering around so much of screens at his house to explore NFL games with family and traffic. He said he’s been in a self-discipline to spend more time with his two 1-yr-oldschool youth — daughter Maliyah and son Isaiah Jr.

“That goes to be the hardest phase, in particular with my son, with him having my steady same name,” Rodgers said. “He may well presumably well factual Google his name for relaxing bask in I passe to enact as a shrimp bit one and lustrous what I’ve been thru, the negativity that comes with me will pop up under his name.”

Rodgers furthermore said he understands the inevitable questions that can come up when of us raise into consideration the reasons within the attend of his suspension — bask in whether or no longer he ever altered the stop consequence of a sport resulting from of a gamble.

“I studied too laborious and too lengthy and labored too laborious to even safe to this self-discipline to exit there and divulge, ‘I’m going to safe this guy receive the ball and rep a touchdown on me factual for $25, $50 bets.’ Nah, that’s no longer even the safe of individual I am.”

In August, the Philadelphia Eagles signed Rodgers and positioned him on the reserve/suspended checklist. He may well presumably well no longer be eligible to put collectively for reinstatement by the league till after the Clear Bowl.

Overcoming doubters and adversity has been central to Rodgers’ existence and football inch. In June 2013, his father, Craig Devon Rodgers, used to be shot and killed by a detective with the Bradenton, Florida, police department all thru a confrontation following a home dispute and alleged kidnapping.

Rodgers left high college in 2016 weighing factual 140 pounds, nonetheless he became a starter at cornerback all thru his freshman season at the University of Massachusetts.

He weighed factual 170 pounds when the Colts selected him with the 211th pick within the 2020 NFL draft. His wander as a nook and kick returner — Rodgers ran a 4.28 40-yard wander at his professional day — led the Colts to raise a flier on him.

“I have confidence bask in shedding my dad in 2013 helped me be the individual I am to this level,” Rodgers said. “I have confidence bask in I’ve been thru the worst of the worst.”

“Something bask in this [the gambling suspension]if this came about to any individual else, they potentially would inch insane. But lustrous that I already been thru the worst, truly nothing can spoil me but again.”