The NFL handed down multiple notable suspensions on Friday stemming from violations of the league’s personal conduct policy. Rams announced offensive lineman Alaric Jackson received a two-game suspension, while Cardinals wide receiver Zay Jones received a five-game ban. Per NFL Media, free agent cornerbacks J.C. Jackson and Chris Claybrooks were also suspended. Jackson has been hit with a mere one-game suspension, while Claybrooks gets suspended for eight games, but the suspension time was deemed served while on the Commissioner’s Exempt List last season.
Jones was arrested last November and charged with misdemeanor domestic battery, but those charges were dropped in March. Despite those dropped charges, the league, as it customarily does, conducted its own investigation and decided on a five-game punishment. Jones, 29, spent the last two seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars before signing a one-year deal with Arizona in May.
He is eligible to return to the Cardinals for the team’s Week 6 game on the road against the Green Bay Packers.
As for Alaric Jackson, he has been with Los Angeles since the franchise signed him as an undrafted free agent out of Iowa in 2021. he played sparingly to begin his NFL career and missed the end of the 2022 season after he was diagnosed with blood clots. The 26-year-old bounced back last season and started all 15 of his games played during the regular season and in the Rams lone playoff game. He was slated to begin the year as L.A.’s starting left tackle, but that will likely now be turned to Joe Noteboom until he is eligible to return.
Alaric Jackson, who signed a one-year restricted free agent tender worth $4.89 million this offseason, will miss the Rams opener against the Detroit Lions and then their Week 2 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals. He is eligible to return to the team in Week 3 when Los Angeles hosts the San Francisco 49ers in their home opener.
Meanwhile, J.C. Jackson spent the 2023 season split between the Chargers and Patriots. After being traded to New England, where he began his career in 2018 and earned an All-Pro nod in 2021, in October, Jackson played in eight games (six starts) and totaled 25 tackles and six pass breakups.
Claybrooks, who was a member of the Jaguars last season but was sidelined due to him being on the Commissioner’s Exempt List, was arrested in Tennessee in April of 2023 on charges of domestic assault with bodily injury and vandalism. Just a few months later in July of 2023, The 26-year-old was arrested in Florida for domestic violence. Claybrooks was a seventh-round draft choice of Jacksonville in 2020 out of Memphis.
