The recent suspension of Tennessee Titans right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere for violating the league's gambling policy probably came as a surprise to many. 

As Petit-Frere shared in his statement on Thursday, following the rules has always been something he has strived to do. With a head coach like Mike Vrabel and his "don't do dumb s— to hurt the team" philosophy, NPF was one of the last guys you would expect to make a mistake like this. 

But if you dive back into an interview Petit-Frere did with Nick Suss of The Tennessean earlier this offseason, you'd find that the writing has been on the wall for this suspension for a while. Petit-Frere actually unintentionally foreshadowed his own suspension last month.

In his interview with Suss, Petit-Frere voiced a lot of frustration with the league's policies and what he felt like was an insufficient explanation of the rules by the NFL. 

I spoke to #Titans    OT Nicholas Petit-Frere about the NFL's gambling policy last month and he had a lot to say about feeling the league didn't properly teach the rules to its players pic.twitter.com/qRWEsUHdKm

— Nick Suss (@nicksuss) June 29, 2023

"I’ll be honest with you, there wasn’t really a lot of teaching from the NFL. I was actually one of the people who asked the most questions when it came to Fantasy Football and things like that. I just wanted to make sure I learned as much as I could," said Petit-Frere.

The former Ohio State Buckeye then mentioned the suspensions that came down earlier this offseason on Jameson Williams and other Detroit Lions players, saying that the NFL needed to do more to eliminate the confusion players have.

"When we heard about those suspensions and things like that, I’ll be honest, a lot of the guys felt like there just wasn’t a lot of teaching in general about this offense," Petit-Frere told Suss. "I just feel like that’s something the NFL should kind of harbor a little bit more and understand these guys are making mistakes that they didn’t even know was a thing. It’s tough. None of us ever want to do anything that jeopardizes the shield, that jeopardizes the NFL."

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Petit-Frere said in his released statement that he did not knowingly break the rules and was unaware of the specifics around placing bets from inside a team facility. But looking back at his comments from earlier this offseason make it very easy to connect the dots and see how things went sideways.

Here's the problem. If Petit-Frere saw Jameson Williams and other Lions players get suspended for violations "they didn't even know were a thing," perhaps the smart move would have been to avoid gambling altogether until you had explicit details about the policies. You can never be too careful when you are flirting with a violation that can alter the course of the season for yourself and your team.

It's also possible that Petit-Frere violated the gambling policy and knew a suspension could be coming prior to making these comments. Getting in front of your frustrations with the league is not a bad idea.

Obviously, Petit-Frere was not intending to get suspended or hurt his team. Had he known his actions were in violation of the rule, there should be no doubt that he would not have done what he did. But that doesn't make it any more reckless or consequential for the Titans this season. 

Now all he can do is work hard and be ready to go when Tennessee calls his number later this fall.

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