Aldon Smith thought he'd be back in the NFL by now, but a delayed reinstatement ruling by the league is frustrating the Raiders linebacker.
Smith applied for reinstatement from his one-year suspension Oct. 3, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has 60 days to make every effort to produce a decision, as mandated under the collective bargaining agreement.
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Friday marked 74 days. Smith called the two-week delay "unprofessional." He's growing "mad and frustrated,” according to his trainer Steve Fotion.
"He is losing hope,” Fotion said, via the San Francisco Chronicle. “They are jerking him around, telling him they’ll have an answer for him on Monday. And then nothing. It seems unprofessional.”
Goodell, who met with Smith last Friday, told reporters Wednesday he didn’t have a timetable for announcing a decision on Smith’s reinstatement.
“We’re going through all of the information to make sure we have it all absolutely accurate,” Goodell told reporters, “that we all understand exactly where he is in the process of trying to get himself in a position where he’s got his life in order enough to resume an NFL career. It was good for me to hear from him personally. But when we get to that decision, we’ll certainly announce it.”
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Smith, who was selected seventh overall by the 49ers in the 2011 NFL Draft, signed a two-year contract with the Raiders in September 2015 but was given a one-year ban on Nov. 17 of that year after being charged with hit and run, DUI and vandalism in August 2015.
The Niners released him after the arrest, his fifth run-in with the law since he was drafted.
Smith, the NFL's 2012 Defensive Player if the Year, entered rehab in July after a video on social media appeared to show him smoking marijuana, although he denied he was the person in the video.
Smith, 27, has 47.5 sacks in 59 career games with the 49ers and Raiders.