Banned Raiders LB Aldon Smith proposes to his girlfriend in San Francisco restaurant

For the second time in four days time, we have Aldon Smith news. This time it’s the banned Raiders linebacker getting engaged.

Smith proposed to this girlfriend Shawna McKnight in a high end San Francisco restaurant on Valentines Day, as reported by TMZ, which added that apparently Joe Montana was sitting at the table next to them.

In case you were wondering, this is not the same girlfriend who drunk drove his car into a police cruiser with him in the passenger seat. That incident occurred in March of last year. McKnight is a personal trainer with whom Smith has been dating the past four months. That’s a pretty quick engagement, but hey if she’s good for him, more power to both of them.

TMZ posted shots of the moment he popped the question and the ring with a pretty considerable stone.

Exactly a week later, Smith was in front of a judge for being nearly $79K behind in his child support payments, claiming he couldn’t afford it without an NFL salary.

This is where we call attention to the elephant in the room. Far be it from me to know how much a ring like the one he gave his new fiance costs or how he afforded it, but for his sake you have to wonder about the optics of the combination of the ring and his claims he needs a break on his child support payments.

Regardless of any of that, congratulations to Aldon Smith. He needs all the support he can get (no pun intended) in his quest to stay clean and sober and on the right path to earning his reinstatement to the NFL; something McKnight said was their priority ahead of picking a wedding date.