Breaking: Raiders officially cut ties with Aldon Smith in wake of domestic violence incident

It’s official. The Raiders have released Aldon Smith. They had him under contract should he ever be reinstated. But in light of his recent domestic violence incident, the team officially cut ties with the trouble former linebacker.

The decision was likely a combination of realizing there was no chance Smith was ever going to be suiting up in the NFL again and the team having had enough of their name associated with him. It was inevitable.

It was this time two years ago that the Raiders signed Smith to a 2-year deal. He was banished from the NFL at the time, so the deal would have begun if/when he was reinstated. He likely would have been invited back a year ago had he been able to clean himself up. But he never could. Alcohol issues were one thing. Adding another domestic violence incident to his long list of transgressions was unacceptable.

Smith played a total of nine games in a Raiders uniform. He spent the first four NFL seasons with the 49ers.