Two Alabama football players, Hootie Jones and Cam Robinson, were arrested this morning in West Monroe, Louisiana, on misdemeanor drug and weapons possession charges after police caught them apparently smoking weed in a parked car, Jones with a handgun in his lap. But Robinson was also charged with possession of a stolen firearm when police found another handgun under the seat of the car and that, friends, is a felony.This, of course, is very bad, primarily because no one—blue chip offensive linemen or otherwise—should ride around with pilfered firearms in their possession. Or sit around, or hang around, or stand around—really, anything around—with weapons that aren't yours. That supersedes any football-related fallout from this.And, oh yes, there will be football ramifications. Robinson, a junior, has been ticketed for NFL stardom ever since he was a consensus five-star recruit out of West Monroe High School in 2014. He immediately marched into the Alabama starting lineup as a true freshman, something that doesn't happen often on Nick Saban teams, and especially not at the premier offensive line position. Until about 12 hours ago, Robinson looked like a pretty safe bet to check in as a top 10 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.It's too soon to even presume to know where this goes, but at the very least it will fire up some exhausting pre-draft chatter. Laremy Tunsil got barbecued for smoking weed and taking exponentially less money than he was worth while at Ole Miss; Robinson should expect to face much higher temperatures for an actual felony charge.But let's say there's more. Saban hasn't been afraid to dismiss premium talent before; just last week, he axed offensive tackle Charles Baldwin for an undisclosed violation of team rules before the five-star junior college signee ever played a snap in Tuscaloosa. Note the position: Baldwin was in the mix, if not the outright favorite, to seize the Tide's vacant right tackle job for 2016. Even if Robinson just gets a suspension—something that, empirically speaking, is far more likely to happen to a premium player after a first offense than an outright dismissal—then Alabama would be out its two most gifted tackles for however long Robinson is sidelined.And given that its season opener is against the perennially underachieving yet uber-talented University of Southern California, a mere half-game slap on the wrist could tilt the scales in a contest that the Tide should win but very well could lose. Should Alabama drop the opener, its title defense would teeter on a cliff's edge before Labor Day; another loss of any kind topples it over entirely.So, this is already a problem for Robinson from a legal standpoint and perhaps a financial one, too, should this spook any prospective NFL employers from taking him as high as his play merits. Yet this is also the rare offseason happening with the potential to disrupt the college football season. That doesn't, and shouldn't, matter more than anything else. But it definitely does matter.
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