Philadelphia- Last week when the Eagles signed Deon Long, who was cut by the LA Rams, it was barely a headline maker, just another person to fill out that last roster sport. Deon Long was a player who played for four different colleges and has been with as many NFL teams as he has colleges.
This shouldn’t be a story at all because he is nothing more than a practice squad at best player. That all changed after watching last night’s episode of HBO’s “Hard Knocks.” The world found out exactly why he was cut. VIOLATION OF TEAM RULES!!!
At the start of Rams camp this year, LA coach, Jeff Fischer, laid out the rules for the team during a pre-camp team meeting, that was captured by the camera. One of the rules he emphasized was no visitors in their dorm rooms.
Well Long got caught with a visitor in his room. He had to go and meet with Fischer. During that meeting Fischer asked Long, “What part of the rules, what part of ‘no female guests in the room,’ did you not understand?” Long could not offer an explanation and that was that.
The Rams coach addressed the team after, informing them that he is tired of the team being mediocre and didn’t want that this year. He told the entire squad “We had some 7-9 stuff this morning and we can’t have that. Deon is gone. That is 7-9 stuff and we don’t need it.”
Then the Birds stepped in by signing Mr. Lewis. The question now is how much vetting Philadelphia did before they signed him. Did they know why the Rams cut him? Is it a bad omen that Long has been with 8 different teams since leaving high school? Howie and Doug should be telling everything that they know to the fans.
While everyone deserves a second chance, time will show us all whether or not Deon has learned his lesson. From my perspective, if this person isn’t disciplined off the field then how can we trust him to disciplined on the field.
FLY EAGLES FLY
