At least one NFL team was reportedly forewarned about Aaron Hernandez. A passage in an upcoming book details that Urban Meyer, Hernandez’s college coach at Florida, told a team to avoid drafting the tight end.
Ian O’Connor’s upcoming book, “Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time,” details someone within the NFL remembering Meyer’s warning ahead of Hernandez being selected in the 2010 NFL Draft.
“Look, this guy’s a hell of a football player, but he f—ing lies to beat the system and teaches all our other guys to beat the system,” Meyer was recalled to have said (H/T TuAnh Dam, Yahoo Sports). “With the marijuana stuff, we’ve never caught this guy, but we know he’s doing it. … Don’t f—ing touch that guy.”
Hernandez ended up getting drafted by the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. Interestingly enough, Bill Belichick and Meyer are friends. Obviously, the same warning never reached Belichick. Or, if it did, he didn’t care.
Hernandez was arrested in June of 2013 in the murder of Odin Lloyd. He was found guilty of the murder in 2015. In April of 2017, Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide.