Falcons DT Babineaux failed fans’ faith and did smoke pot

The Atlanta Falcons defensive tackle Jonathan Babineaux said last Saturday that fans should believe he was not guilty. But a police report released Tuesday said that Babineaux admitted smoking marijuana.

Babineaux and a friend, Aaron Robinson, were arrested in Babineaux’s 2005 Cadillac Escalade Thursday night after a routine traffic stop because the tag lights were out and the windows were tinted darker than the law allowed. The officer noted the car smelled of marijuana. Firstly, Babineaux told officer that he loaned the car to some friends who had smoked the drug in it a few nights earlier, then said that Robinson had a medical marijuana license.

However, a drug-sniffing dog found a plastic baggie filled with marijuana and a few blunts in a backpack at the center of the back seat. 1 1/2 ounces of the drug was found altogether. Babineaux still denied smoking the drug until his friend Robinson told police in a separate interview that Babineaux had smoked “from the marijuana blunt at least two to three times.” It was by then that the Falcons player admitted smoking from the marijuana blunt once, saying that he did not tell truth because he did not want to admit smoking marijuana.

Babineaux still put on his Falcons jerseys and started last Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints. According to the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and its players, the team followed NFL rules in letting him play. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league will wait for the case to move through the legal process to decide Babineaux’s fate. But still he may face a four-game suspension if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell decides to have Babineaux enter the league’s intervention program.