Commanders head coach Ron Rivera says it’s incumbent on teams to make sure players know about the NFL’s strict gambling rules.
Rivera said today that after Commanders defensive lineman Shaka Toney was suspended by the NFL for gambling policy violations in April, it became even more clear to the team that gambling is something that must be taken seriously.
“The first thing we did when it first broke initially, we did have a player that was involved, unfortunately, we reached out to the league and asked them if they had a PowerPoint they could send and share with us,” Rivera said. “We got Mike Jacobs, our head of security here, involved as well. And then we presented to the players. It’s presented every year, but what we did was an extra emphasis on it. Tomorrow the league will have a presentation as well. So we’re going to continue that, it will be a presentation that we will do during training camp as well again, just so we continue to hammer these things home and be very, very careful that we understand the integrity of the league, the integrity of each team and the players’ own integrity and coaches’ integrity for that matter as well are at stake. We have to be very, very diligent about this.”
Although the NFL has embraced gambling by partnering with sports books, the league still strictly prohibits players from betting on NFL games, and from betting on any sport while they’re at the team facility or other team functions. Some players appeared not to know that and have been suspended, and Rivera and other coaches are doing what they can to avoid more suspensions.
