With suspension lifted, Rolando McClain hopes to play again
Even though he’s 34 years old and almost eight years removed from his most recent NFL game, now that Rolando McClain is eligible to play again, he wants to return to football.
On Wednesday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell ended McClain’s indefinite suspension.
“I never planned to not return to football,’’ McClain told Mike Fisher of Sports Illustrated’s Cowboys Country.
McClain hasn’t played in an NFL game since Jan. 3, 2016. He was indefinitely suspended by the NFL on Dec. 2, 2016, for violating the league’s Program and Policy for Substances of Abuse.
McClain served a four-game suspension to start the 2015 season for running afoul of the NFL’s Program and Policy for Substances of Abuse and was returning from missing the first 10 games of the 2016 campaign on a second suspension when he received the indefinite suspension.
AL.com reported McClain received a conditional reinstatement in August 2019, shortly before he was released by the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 2, 2019, and he was back on the suspended list by December without returning to the NFL.
The end to his suspension makes McClain an NFL free agent.
“Mr. Goodell has been a big supporter of mine from the beginning,’’ McClain told Fisher. “He’s always been fair.’’
McClain was a football and basketball star for Decatur High School before earning the Butkus Award as the nation’s best linebacker and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year Award while playing for the undefeated Alabama team that won the BCS national-championship team for the 2009 season.
McClain was the eighth player selected in the 2010 NFL Draft, going to the Oakland Raiders. McClain made the Pro Football Writers of America’s All-Rookie team, but he played his final game for the Raiders on Nov. 25, 2012.
McClain didn’t appear in another NFL regular-season game for 642 days.
