A recent Rolling Stone piece titled Gangster in the Huddle about Aaron Hernandez has shed lots of light on Hernandez's life off the field, as well as the Patriots decision to cut ties so quickly with a player once viewed as nearly indispensable to their offensive scheme.
According to the Rolling Stone article, Hernandez, 23, had been a longtime abuser of the drug PCP, also known as angel dust. His frequent drug usage had made Hernandez paranoid, and he carried a firearm with him at all times.
The article takes readers back to before Hernandez was on anyone's radar, to a troubled childhood with two criminal parents. His mother Terri Hernandez cheated on Aaron's father, and when his father died, entered a relationship with a "violent drug dealer." The man moved into Hernandez's house and apparently influenced him as he grew older. There are also allegations of assistance from former coach Urban Meyer regarding failed drug tests and violent incidents off the field during his Florida Gators tenure.
As a professional, Hernandez is said to have surrounded himself with thugs and gangsters, while distancing himself from his family members and teammates. His behavior deteriorated, and Gangster in the Huddle claims Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was close to cutting Hernandez due to "missed practices and thug-life stunts," even though he had just inked a five-year, $40 million contract extension with more than $12 million guaranteed.
All of Hernandez's thuggish antics finally caught up to him, however, on June 26th when he was arrested on first-degree murder charges for the June 17thth shooting of Odin Lloyd. Lloyd was a 27-year-old semipro football player, and the boyfriend of Hernandez's fiancee's sister.
It was initially reported that Lloyd was killed because Hernandez caught him speaking with a group of people he didn't like, but some authorities now believe Lloyd had information about Hernandez's involvement in a 2012 double homicide, and that Hernandez wanted to silence him.
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