Second year player discovered with gun at La Guardia airport and could face prison.NBC New York have reported the arrest of Tampa Bay Buccaneers player Da’Quan Bowers, after he was found carrying a loaded firearm onto an aeroplane Monday night.
The second year defensive end was attempting to board a flight to North Carolina from New York City, when the gun was found. Bowers was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a firearm, which can carry a three-year prison sentence.
It is unclear as to why the former Clemson star was carrying the weapon onto the plane, which will become clearer once he attends a court hearing next week, but whatever the reason was, it wasn’t a clever one.
During the off-season, one or two of these types of stories appear as players struggle to fill the void left by the training and games they spend their lives doing.
What is most surprising about this case is that there has been no history of Bowers and the law. Coming out of college there were no personal problems scouts and coaches could spot, and that he was deemed a ‘clean’ player.
This will no doubt put questions in the mind of the Tampa Bay management staff as to whether they can afford to keep someone on their roster who could potentially commit these kind of offences again, as well as having a detrimental affect on the rest of the locker room.
Bowers has struggled to make the big impact that was expected out of him in his first two seasons in the league. Struggling with injuries including a torn achilles tendon, has limited his playing time and production on a Tampa Bay defense that was expected to perform under the big expectations it carried into the 2012 season.
The young defensive prospect must hope that this case will blow over so he can focus on getting fit, and developing into the stud pass rusher that many of the Tampa Bay hoped he would become.
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