One Friday, four players, three separate policies, and bans ranging from one game to eight. Here's how NFL discipline actually works.
On Friday 14 August, the NFL suspended four players. James Pearce Jr. of Atlanta got eight games. Nazeeh Johnson of Tennessee got six. Buffalo's Phidarian Mathis got three. Washington's Dorance Armstrong got one.
To a British reader used to an FA disciplinary panel, that spread looks arbitrary. It isn't. Those four bans were issued under three entirely different policies, by different processes, with different appeal routes. Understanding which is which explains almost everything about how the NFL polices its players.
Three policies, not one
The Personal Conduct Policy covers off-field behaviour: violence, weapons, arrests. It is the broadest and most discretionary of the three, and crucially it does not require a criminal conviction. The league conducts its own investigation and can act whether or not the courts do. That's how Pearce and Armstrong were suspended under the same policy for wildly different lengths.
The Performance-Enhancing Substances Policy is the opposite: near-automatic, with fixed penalties and very little discretion. Johnson's six games is that machinery running, not a judgement call.
The Substances of Abuse Policy covers recreational drugs and alcohol-related offences, and has been substantially relaxed over the last few years, and the league now treats most of it as a health issue rather than a disciplinary one. Mathis's three games reflects a policy that suspends far less readily than it once did.
Same Friday, same press release, three different machines.
When the clock starts
Here's the part that surprises newcomers most: all four players can keep practising and playing until rosters are set on 30 August. Suspensions in the NFL are served in regular-season games. A banned player takes part in the entire pre-season, then disappears when the games start counting.
| Player | Ban | Back for |
|---|---|---|
| James Pearce Jr. (ATL) | 8 games · conduct | Week 9, Cincinnati in Madrid |
| Nazeeh Johnson (TEN) | 6 games · PEDs | Week 7 v Cleveland, 25 Oct |
| Phidarian Mathis (BUF) | 3 games · substances | Week 4 v New England, 4 Oct |
| Dorance Armstrong (WAS) | 1 game · conduct | Week 2, after the opener |
A suspended player is also, for that period, unpaid and off the roster. His place is available to someone else, which is one reason a suspension in August can end a marginal career even when the player himself is back by Hallowe'en.
The third route
Discipline isn't the only way a player disappears, which brings us to the Commissioner's Exempt List, a piece of machinery with no equivalent in British sport. It is not a punishment. A player on it is paid and remains under contract but cannot practise or play, and doesn't count against the 53-man roster. It exists so the league can remove someone from the field while a serious legal matter is unresolved, without pre-judging the outcome.
Seattle's decision to sign cornerback Terrion Arnold while he faces eight felony charges in a Tampa kidnapping and robbery case is a live test of exactly that mechanism. Cincinnati's Ceyair Wright is on the same list for an entirely different reason, having left camp to pursue an acting role, which tells you how wide the category is.
Why it's not like home
The instinct for a football supporter is to compare this to an FA charge, and the comparison misleads in one important way. The FA disciplines conduct in and around the game. The NFL, through its Personal Conduct Policy, claims jurisdiction over a player's entire life, and has done since 2007, when the league decided that its own reputation was a thing it was entitled to protect independently of the criminal courts.
That claim is genuinely contested. The players' union has fought it repeatedly, chiefly over the fact that the Commissioner has historically sat as both prosecutor and appeal judge. Reforms have shifted some appeals to jointly-appointed officers, but the underlying tension hasn't gone away: an employer punishing an employee for conduct a court has not ruled on, under a policy that employee's union agreed to.
Sources: AP, CNN, CBS Sports, NFL.com, Yahoo Sports, league policy documents. Current to 17 August 2026.
Printed in Issue 3 of The Grid and released free on 11 September 2026. The text is as it appeared in the magazine, lightly edited for the web.