Former Packers DE Johnny Jolly Applies for NFL Reinstatement

By: The Football Girl | Posted: June 19, 2012

Last year, former Packers defensive end Johnny Jolly finally hit rock bottom.  Jolly had already been arrested multiple times for codeine possession, and in 2010 season was suspended indefinitely from the NFL. A two-year starter, he watched the Packers win Super Bowl XLV from afar. He received no ring.

Then last March, Jolly was charged with a felony possession of 600 grams of codeine and was sentenced to six years in prison. 

But it was a short-lived term.  Last month, Jolly’s attorney asked for early ‘shock probation’ on the grounds that his client was now sober and his addiction to codeine had only harmed himself, not others.  The judge agreed, granting Jolly this special form of probation which allows certain first-time convicts to be released early after experiencing the shock of being in jail.

Johnny Jolly’s probation is ten years, but he is essentially a free man. And now the 29-year old age 29 has applied for reinstatement to the NFL.

Roger Goodell has a history of reinstating players, most famously with Michael Vick after imprisonment for dog-fighting, and most recently with Bucs safety Tanard Jackson suspended after violating the league’s substance-abuse policy.  Assuming he’s in shape, you would think Jolly has a good shot to join them as active players.

To learn more about Johnny Jolly, check out this powerful Outside the Lines piece, shot just a few weeks before Jolly entered prison. Jolly talks intimately with Mark Fainaru-Wada about the codeine addiction that has plagued him since high-school.

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