Bills’ Whitner upsets team by getting shocked

By Anthony Bialy  |   Sunday, April 12, 2009  |  Comments( 76 )

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Please, not Donte Whitner. The safety is the last player the Buffalo Bills need getting detained. Now, he’s just another employee keeping the team’s name in the news for unpleasant reasons. Bills fans can’t wait for the 2009 NFL season to start, and one reason is that they’re reluctant to see which of their players with too much leisure time gets handcuffed and maybe zapped next.

Why can’t an alleged team leader go to a birthday party and just behave? The defender was arrested outside of Cleveland’s House of Blues over the weekend. It’s bad enough he was attending an event commemorating the birth of high school/college teammate Ted Ginn Jr., wideout for the mortally despised Miami Dolphins. But he apparently had to seek out trouble, too.

The defensive captain's evening went south when he left the club to head for a brawl taking place outside. Reportedly, he got past officers who attempted to first contain him and then restrain him; that’s when they resorted to the stun gun. The electrically stimulated Ohio State product was subsequently brought in on charges of aggravated disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. This isn’t like Jim Haslett or Isiah Robertson getting booked for having too much fun; after all, messing with cops is a few steps beyond drunken brawls with buddies.

Unfortunately, Whitner is only the latest Bill to get arrested in 2009, not the first. Fellow safety Ko Simpson also baits police as a hobby. His eerily similar collision with authorities was more entertaining than Whitner’s by one ridiculous boast about his alleged net worth. Plus, regardless of whether Marshawn Lynch actually brought harm upon anyone, he shouldn’t have placed himself in a position where he was violating the law. In a similar vein, Whitner may be exonerated; still, what’s better is never getting in a situation where one has to be exonerated in the first place.

It’s not as if the Bills are getting positive notice otherwise. The other news for which they drew national attention since the season ended was of course the signing of an all-time attention junkie. At least Terrell Owens is legally an angel; after dissecting one more arrest, backers hope to return to relatively innocuous discussions about how quickly the wideout will start acting as a locker room cancer.

Even worse, there’s not a tradeoff between success and bad behavior: This franchise’s players are out inflicting mayhem upon society after another 7-9 season. Maybe their offseason is too long. Teams that make the playoffs have up to one fewer month in which to provoke law enforcement officials.

Too much free time has become a huge problem for this disorderly roster; it’s led to the franchise once again being reduced to releasing yet another vague statement addressing a legal matter. Multiple arrests keep this team from focusing public relations energy on the draft, not to mention that each handcuffing kind of brings bad press on its own.

It’s of course not helping the player’s image, either. This apprehension makes Whitner’s 2006 harassment arrest after a reported domestic quarrel with his girlfriend appear less like an aberration. Unfortunately for Whitner, everyone remembers his incorrect guarantee that the Bills would make the playoffs in 2008; a Taser encounter won’t aid his quest to make good on his boast one season late.

There are so many ways this doesn’t help the Bills, among them the fact that Whitner now potentially faces a suspension. If he misses a game against the Dolphins, conspiracy specialists should blame Ginn for beginning the sequence that led to the arrest by not holding his birthday party at Adventure Landing. Is he too good for miniature golf?
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No.1
Amir FaSaad		06:20 AM
04/13/2009
Good mornin Mr. and Mrs. Bilzfan and all the snipers that see, How can Bialy write so much and not mention that some of those ...
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No.2
flda-dennis		06:42 AM
04/13/2009
Amier, arent we up early this morning. Too much horseradish with our Easter feast?? They arent who we thought they were. Even ...
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No.3
Goose		07:14 AM
04/13/2009
To me this is a non-issue----off duty cops, lack of identification in a bar altercation situation-----never turn your back or ...
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