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It’s not just his inauspicious departure from Denver that should raise some red flags ahead of Randy Gregory’s arrival with the 49ers. It’s also his history as one of the most oft-suspended players in the history of the NFL, which started in his rookie year and included substance abuse bans that kept him out for all of 2017 and all of 2019.
He was also suspended a game last season for punching a Rams player. Coach Kyle Shanahan was asked about Gregory’s lengthy docket with the league office.
“Yeah, you look into all that stuff always, but you always judge a guy when you get to know him and it’s our first time to do it,” Shanahan said, via 49ers Webzone. “But also there’s a lot of people I know really well that speak extremely highly of him and it’s very consistent.
“So I’m excited about the person we got, the character of the guy, from what I’ve been told from everyone who knows him. And we love the tape. I know he has messed up at times in the past, but from the type of person I’ve been told that he is, we’re really excited to have him here.”
Gregory Addressed Substance Abuse Suspensions
After spending his first six seasons battling his demons and the fallout that came from his substance abuse suspensions—in addition to missing 2017 and 2019, he was suspended for the first six games of 2020—Gregory appeared to turn things around ahead of the 2021 season.
“It’s a lot of self-love,” Gregory told reporters in Dallas during the Cowboys’ mandatory minicamp in 2021. “There was a time in my life when you could ask me to say one good thing about myself and I couldn’t. I could say 20 bad things.
“I have come a long way from that. I can say a lot of good things about myself. I am proud of myself. I am proud of where I am at. I am proud of the journey I took. A lot of guys don’t make it as far as I have.”
Gregory had an outstanding 2021 season and translated that into a five-year, $70 million contract offer from the Broncos. But he suffered a knee injury in Week 4 in what was a disastrous season all around for the Broncos in 2022, and was limited to six games.
He was playing uninspiring football for the Broncos again this year when Denver began shopping him for a trade, with an eye on simply waiving him if there were no takers. The 49ers scooped him up as a low-risk gamble.
Teammates Welcoming Randy Gregory
There’s excitement, now, among Gregory’s new teammates, who say he shares the kind of intense, chip-on-the-shoulder approach to the game that the rest of the organization has. Aiming to win a Super Bowl for the first time since 1995 will do that.
Gregory has cause to feel slighted—he just got axed by one of the league’s worst teams.
“He has everything that we’re about,” tackle Trent Williams said. “Guy who plays like his hair is on fire, guy who give you 100% until the whistle. Obviously, a great pass rusher, will get after the quarterback, sets the edge in the run game. So, I mean, everything we’re about, he’s about. It’s a perfect fit.”
Williams has watched Gregory since he arrived in the league, going back to Williams’ nine years in Washington.
“I actually spoke to him, I saw him out at practice,” Williams said. “I’ve been playing against him for a long time. We obviously been in the division together, I played hm here a few times. Watched a lot of him—essentially, every year of his career, I had to watch him, study him at some point. So, yeah, I feel like I know him really, really well. Obviously, we don’t know each other personally but playing against each other, we have a high level of mutual respect.”
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49ers’ Kyle Shanahan Addresses Randy Gregory’s Long NFL Suspension History