Robert Nkemdiche's First Move When He Gets Drafted: Buy A Panther

ESPN – ROBERT NKEMDICHE WANTS a pet panther. That’s how he plans to treat himself when he signs his rookie contract. He wants to take care of his family, and he wants to buy a panther.

…he’s watching Instagram videos of domesticated panthers. He likes the black ones, likes how their eyes glow. He stares at shots of people playing with panthers, wrestling with them as if they were dogs, nudging faces, fearless when they open their mouths. “It’s sick.”

It’s insane.

“No, it’s not. They’re like cats.”

Can’t he see the headline? Visitor Mauled by NFL Star Robert Nkemdiche’s Pet Panther.

“If someone comes over and is scared, I’ll put the panther away.”

…

Well, there’s a reason Robert Nkemdiche went from “locked in top 5 Draft pick” to “who the hell knows?”

There was a horrible Combine where he bombed interviews and skipped the shuttle drill.

There was getting high on spice and falling out of a freaking hotel window

Cops were dispatched to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. Nkemdiche was on the ground in front of the hotel, injured but conscious. Upstairs in room 422, there were 12 joints on a table, alongside $51 and Nkemdiche’s passport and Ole Miss student ID.

A cop visited Nkemdiche in Grady Hospital. Nkemdiche told the cop he didn’t remember exactly how he fell 15 feet out of the window, and he would later tell teams he was “drunk,” “belligerent” and “blacked out.”

Many teams don’t believe he was only drunk. Some cite a Fox Sports report that Nkemdiche was tripping on synthetic weed

There was the viral bong picture.

There was the $2 million lawsuit for allegedly beating the crap out of a frat bro with his brother.

Msn.Foxsports - Denzel Nkemdiche is a linebacker for Ole Miss’s football team who is presently indefinitely suspended follwing an arrest this past weekend for disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. According to a civil complaint filed on Valentine’s Day in LaFayette County, Mississippi, a year before this arrest Denzel Nkemdiche assaulted an innocent individual who he’d never met or spoken to before at Ole Miss’s Kappa Alpha fraternity house in the early morning hours of February 17th, 2013.

Per the complaint, brought by the high-powered law firm of Burch, Porter, and Johnson in Memphis, Matthew Baird and his girlfriend were at the Kappa Alpha house with their friend Ford Everett. They arrived at the fraternity house at 11:45 in the evening and shortlly thereafter Denzel Nkdemiche and his brother Robert, then a senior in high school and recent commit to Ole Miss, along with five other unidentified football players, identified as John Does 1-5 in the complaint, also arrived at the house. The complaint states that Denzel was friends with fraternity members and had visited the house several times before.

A fight broke out — not involving the plaintiff — and KA members decided to clear out the house. During this time Denzel Nkemdiche was observed ripping off his shirt and screaming, “I’m going to beat that motherfucker’s ass!”

The plaintiff and Everett decided to leave the house when, according to the complaint, without any provocation Denzel punched the plaintiff in the back of the head, immediately knocking him out.

Not content with the knockout blow Robert Nkemdiche and five other football players, unidentified but sued as John Does in the lawsuit, then are accused of kicking and stomping the plaintiff as he was passed out on the ground. Everett, the plaintiff’s friend, dove on the ground and covered the unconscious plaintiff, leading to his also being beaten. According to the complaint, Everett was beaten so severely that his eardrum was busted and his middle ear was severely injured.

911 was called and the plaintiff was transported to the hospital in an ambulance. But before authorities could arrive, the Nkemdiche brothers and the five other football players fled the scene. The plaintiff was knocked unconscious for 12 to 15 minutes and his body began to convulse in a seizure. He was taken to the emergency room where he was treated for multiple injuries, including a severe head injury.

There is just being, in general, weird as fuck.

Soon Nkemdiche is quadruple-tasking. He’s chugging. “Something about Mountain Dew, man.” He’s eavesdropping on a conversation between two 80-something men. “I like old people. There’s no pretentiousness.” He’s discussing his admiration for Pink Floyd. “Division Bell. It speaks to me.”

…Nkemdiche read The Celestine Prophecy, a novel about Eastern traditions. It felt like an awakening. He began referring to himself as spiritual rather than religious. He thinks often now about interconnectivity, about “centering myself” to put his “soul at ease.” He’s writing a science fiction book about a meeting of the “thoughts of the human mind and the conscious.” He wants to start a fashion line. He uses the word majestic to describe everything. “I evolved.”

Nkemdiche was part of an entire enlightenment subculture on the Rebels, helping teammates see “the whole vision.” Of course, GMs never ask him about that stuff. Guys with outside interests tend to scare the hell out of them. One team’s scouting report reads, “He thinks he’s a philosopher.”

And now you got a guy whose list of priorities after getting his first contract has a tie at #1 between “taking care of his family” and “buying a ferocious killer cat.” I don’t know how the scouts handle their paperwork exactly, do they just take out a red sharpie and literally draw a gigantic flag on his report when they hear that?

PS,

Got at least one team interested.