Suspended Raiders LB Aldon Smith waits on possible reinstatement
— -- Suspended Oakland Raiders outside linebacker Aldon Smith met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and other league staff Friday in hopes of being reinstated, a league source confirmed to ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Smith's yearlong suspension for violating the league's rules on substance abuse ended Nov. 17. He applied for reinstatement Oct. 3.
No decision on reinstatement will be made Friday, the source told ESPN. The NFL Network first reported that Smith was meeting with Goodell in New York.
Smith's suspension fell "under the collectively bargained substances of abuse policy," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in an email last month. McCarthy said many steps have to be satisfied within 60 days of the player's application for reinstatement before it can be granted.
Per a report by Schefter, Smith spent 120 days at a rehabilitation facility in Carbondale, Colorado, after a Periscope video was posted -- on an account purportedly belonging to Smith -- of an unidentified man and woman talking about a hand-rolled cigarette.
Smith has denied it was him in the video, which was posted over the summer. The NFL was going to investigate the video, according to ESPN's Ed Werder, since it may have violated the terms of Smith's suspension.
Smith has had issues before, going to rehab in 2013 and serving a nine-game suspension in 2014 for violating the league's personal conduct and substance abuse policies while with the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners cut him in training camp in 2015 after his fifth arrest since entering the league in 2011. He signed with the Raiders in September 2015 before being suspended that November.
Although he was under suspension, and not allowed to have formal contact with the team as part of the suspension, the Raiders re-signed him to a two-year contract in April following his 3.5 sacks in nine games for Oakland.
