After going AWOL this past weekend for reasons that are still not totally clear, Miami Dolphins linebacker Lawrence Timmons was suspended indefinitely by his team on Tuesday.
According to a recent report by TMZ, Timmons was reportedly found at the Los Angeles airport on Sunday after the Dolphins filed a missing persons report after becoming concerned when the 31-year-old linebacker was not in his hotel room during bed check. Police reportedly found Timmons in the airport boarding area waiting to take a flight to Pennsylvania to see his baby daughter.
Several Dolphins players have since said Timmons showed no signs he was dealing with any issues ahead of him coming up missing on Sunday and added he had been a model teammate during the preseason.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN on Monday, one source told him Timmons is “doing much better [Monday] and wants to resume playing immediately” with the hope that he will practice this week after first meeting with doctors. Another league source reportedly told Schefter he does not believe Timmons’ recent incident is a result of the early onset of CTE.
“No one has ever seen anything like it,” one source said.
This really is a bizarre story when you consider that Timmons is the main character in it. He was a model player during his 10 years with the Pittsburgh Steelers and hasn’t missed a game dating back to 2009, his second season in the NFL. By not playing Sunday, Timmons’ consecutive games started streak of 101 came to an end.
As Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network pointed out Tuesday afternoon on Twitter, Timmons now being suspended by the Dolphins might wind up voiding the guaranteed $4.5 million of the scheduled $5.45 million 2018 base salary he was scheduled to earn.
The two-year contract Timmons signed with the Dolphins this pad March reportedly included a $5.5 million signing bonus and a fully guaranteed 2017 base salary of one million. Additionally, Timmons earned another $25,000 this past offseason in the form of a workout bonus and is scheduled to earn another $25,000 next offseason.
Should Timmons’ 2018 guarantees wind up being voided due to his recent suspension, he’s almost sure to be released after the 2017 season ends, if not sooner.
On Tuesday, the Steelers media were told that the team would have no comment on Timmons’ current situation.
This certainly will be interesting to watch play out the rest of the way. Will the Dolphins just release Timmons in the near future? Does Timmons have a good reason for going AWOL on Sunday? We’ll see if we get those questions answered in the very near future.
