Just months after being charged with domestic battery and evading police for weeks, the Pittsburgh Steelers are giving CB Cam Sutton a second chance. Signed to a one-year deal Wednesday, Sutton returns for his second stint with the team after being drafted by Pittsburgh in 2017 and spending the first six years of his career with the team. While some Steelers fans are happy to see him back to fill the team’s hole at slot corner, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio blasted the team for bringing Sutton back.
“I don’t get what the Steelers are doing here. Other than saying we had this guy for six years, we got him cheap. He’s a starting corner. We got him cheap. And we’ll just deal with this crap. And it’s a lot of crap,” Florio said. “And it’s a bad look for the Steelers. And it’s a bad look for the Steelers they gave this guy a second chance.”
The Detroit Lions released Sutton shortly after news of his arrest warrant came to light. Sutton turned himself into police and by entering a pretrial diversion program, his felony battery charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. If he completes all parts of the program, his record will be wiped clean. But the story of what he’s accused of doing won’t be forgotten.
Florio read aloud the affidavit that accused Sutton of choking his girlfriend and mother of his three children while also holding her down by the hair and twice hitting her on the forehead. Florio also took Sutton to task for comments he made to the media yesterday, highlighting the “adversity” he’s dealing with and will battle through.
“He’s almost characterizing himself as a victim. ‘We all go through adversity.’ Some adversity is set upon us,” Florio said. “Some adversity we create by the things we do.”
Cam Sutton could be subject to NFL discipline. If viewed as violating the league’s domestic violence policy, his baseline suspension would sit at six games. The NFL could add or subtract based on various factors to the case. Florio points out strangulation as an aggravating factor that could increase his suspension. But there is not clear a timeline of when the league would make a decision. Most likely, it would either come before this season or after the 2024 campaign has wrapped up.
Mike Tomlin and the organization have yet to comment on signing Sutton. They do know him better than any other team, drafting and rostering him for six years, and have always praised his football IQ. Clearly, they felt comfortable enough being the team to take the chance on Sutton. But they will understandably receive plenty of criticism for signing a player accused of a terrible act and someone whose NFL career appeared over just two months ago.
