While Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Martavis Bryant certainly won’t be able to help the team the remainder of the playoffs, the former fourth-round draft pick out of Clemson has started the process of possibly helping them once again in 2017.
Per Tom Pelissero, Bryant, who was suspended for the entire 2016 season for multiple violations of the league’s substance abuse policy, has now applied for reinstatement.
UPDATE: Bryant will apply for reinstatement in a week or two, his agent told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Tuesday
“We’re putting together the packet, going through the process right now,” Thomas Santanello said Tuesday after denying Pelissero’s report that they applied for reinstatement last week.
It’s long been known that Jan. 17 would be the first day that Bryant would be allowed to apply for reinstatement and now that that process appears to be underway, he’ll have to wait for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to make his decision and that might take some time.
Goodell might ultimately decide to wait a few more months until he makes his decision when it comes to Bryant, who was recently interviewed by Sports Illustrated.
In that recent interview, Bryant admitted that he didn’t take his first suspension or subsequent drug rehab session serious. He did say, however, that he now knows that he’s probably out of strikes when it comes to his NFL future and that he last smoked marijuana 8 months ago.
“I know I’m on my last chance,” Bryant said.” I’ve been watching what happened with Josh Gordon, Manziel, Justin Blackmon.”
Bryant also admitted recently that he’s now taking his offseason a lot more serious than he did in the past as well and that he’s since added some weight during his current year-long suspension.
It has been reported that Bryant has spent a lot of his time away from the Steelers this season in Las Vegas helping out a local high school football team.
Assuming Bryant is now clean and remains that way, he’ll likely be reinstated by Goodell in the coming months and hopefully prior to the start of the Steelers 2017 OTA sessions.
