Aaron Hernandez will have plenty of time to work the gangster lifestyle that he apparently loved more than being a professional football player. The former Patriots tight end was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison today. This guy went from being one of the best tight ends in the NFL with a new $40 million contract on a prominent team to being a convicted murderer that will wake up every day in a fucking cage. The scenario sounds more like a ‘Lifetime Network’ movie than a real life event. Reality is truly stranger than fiction sometimes.
There are plenty of innocent people in jail. The proof of that is in all the people released from prison after DNA evidence showed their innocence. The American judicial system is certainly not perfect and we don’t know all the details behind the scenes yet, unless you are willing to look over ream after ream of courtroom documents. With that said, it sure looks like Hernandez is a killer. His own lawyer finally acknowledged he was with the other two friends who are awaiting trial for the same murder of Odin Lloyd. His legal team likely admitted that in closing statements simply because there was substantial evidence showing that to be the case anyway.
The defense claims he was a 23 year old guy who witnessed a horrible crime committed by two friends and didn’t know what to do. First thing you do is not hang out with friends that are capable of murder. This was no spur of the minute killing. This was an execution. No way Hernandez didn’t have a feel for what his two buddies were capable of doing. And that is a best case scenario for the former football star. The more likely situation was Hernandez pulling the trigger himself, judging from the jury’s decision.
By the way, the justice system isn’t done with Hernandez. He will face another murder trial for the drive by shootings of two men over a spilled drink at a nightclub. It’s a good thing Hernandez is already going to prison for life. It would suck to be in the clink over a spilled beer at a club. To be fair, prosecutors suggest Lloyd was killed to help cover up the 2012 drive by slayings. Aaron Hernandez is not very good at covering his tracks. From destroying his home video security system, to breaking his cell phone, to the extreme of killing one guy to conceal the murder of others, this guy is Matlock’s wet dream. It’s amazing the bonehead out of the University of Florida remained among the free population as long as he did. Now he will be in the gen pop at a guarded facility.
Aaron Hernandez should be the poster child for the NFL Rookie Symposium. Most athletes likely know how much trouble you can get into if you take another human’s life. But on the off chance that there is another Hernandez, Rae Carruth, or O.J. Simpson (allegedly) lurking in the 2015 draft, it would be good to mention to the future draftees that murder is wrong. All the speeches in the world may not be as effective as showing video footage a former $40 million dollar baller wearing “inmate orange.”
What is truly amazing is how the New England Patriots bounced back from the loss of a Pro Bowl player so quickly. Hernandez and Gronkowski were a one-two punch at tight end that the league had never had to deal with before. That duo would have been a monster mismatch for years down the line. It was not to be though and the Pats won their fourth Super Bowl this past February as their once prized fourth round pick sat in his jail cell. Hernandez was cut within hours of his arrest and the team never looked back. Even the Raiders wouldn’t have kept a guy like this around for long once such news broke.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Pro athletes cannot stay who they were once they enter the professional ranks. If they had a perfect homelife in a cozy little town, that is one thing. If they were living on the edge of crime riddled areas and had “friends” that were criminals themselves, these athletes have to leave that behind. In most cases, the bad seeds are going to drag the superstar athletes down instead of the star’s pulling their “buddies” up from the streets. All Aaron Hernandez had to do was keep his nose relatively clean. He could have gotten away with acting a fool now and then. He was a pro athlete with some real money. But you can’t just go kill a guy…. or two…. or three. That kinda shit will usually catch up with you unless you are some kind of evil genius criminal. Hernandez is no genius of any sort, so he will now await his death day after day in a tiny cell meant for animals, which is what he behaved as.