Dallas Cowboys: La'el Collins addresses suspension, position switch

Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman La’el Collins will be back in action this weekend against the Minnesota Vikings. But unfortunately for Collins, he will not be in the starting lineup this week. 

Collins is coming back from a five-game suspension for violating the league’s substance policy agreement. During his absence with the team, Terence Steele took his starting spot at right tackle. 

This week Collins spoke on his suspension and the accusation of bribing the drug test collector. 

“All I will say about that is I have no reason to bribe a drug collector. Never have, never will,” Collins said. “It was nothing like that. It started off as a joke among a few guys and went the wrong way. Like I said, there was nothing in my system that would have led me to try to get out of testing. I knew I was getting tested randomly. I was being tested a lot, 10-plus times a month sometimes. There was no way getting around that and still isn’t. It is what it is.”

This week during practice, Collins spent time taking snaps at guard and tackle. Earlier in his career, Collins started at left guard for the Cowboys. But since then, he has solely been Dallas’ starting right tackle. With Steele looking impressive in Collins’ absence, the Cowboys have selected to stay with their hot hand at tackle. And Collins showed his support of Dallas’ decision and Steele.

“I’m proud of the way Terence has been working. He’s been playing his ass off,” he said.

Collins suspension saga

The NFL suspended Collins following a dispute over a drug screening and was accused of bribery afterward. The former LSU Tigers offensive lineman was suspended five games for the infraction. The suspension was announced just one day after the Cowboys’ Week 1 loss, 31-29, to the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In response to the suspension, Collins sued the NFL, its management council and commissioner Roger Goodell. That lawsuit was filed roughly two weeks ago and said a suspension for a missed marijuana test was no longer allowed thanks to the labor agreement signed by the NFL and the NFLPA in 2020. In his lawsuit, Collins requested his suspension be halted and to be reinstated back into the league. The NFL countered his claim stating that Collins had a “long history of discipline for repeated violations.”

Last week, the case went before U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant who ruled to uphold the league’s suspension of the right tackle. Mazzant said that although the NFL suspension of Collins violated the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the players union; the arbitrator’s decision was based on a “reasonable construction of the parties’ agreement.”