The New York Giants will open this season without the services of Will Hill for the third consecutive year.
The team on Friday announced that the third-year safety lost his appeal and has been suspended six games without pay for violating the league's substance-abuse policy.
After serving a four-game ban in 2012 for performance-enhancing drug use, Hill missed the first four games of the 2013 campaign for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy.
Highly touted but undrafted out of Florida because of character concerns, Hill is eligible to rejoin New York's active roster on Monday, October 13 after the team's Week 6 tilt with the Eagles. Tom Rock of Newsday tweeted Friday that he didn't expect Big Blue to activate Hill this season after a third strike in as many years.
Rock noted that the organization has "put a lot of time and energy" into keeping Hill clean. Last month, the New York Daily News reported that the Giants were "livid" at Hill's off-the-field adventures while hinting that the safety was likely "done" in Gotham.
When he resurfaced from last season's ban, Hill surged down the stretch for New York's defense, earning a spot on Chris Wesseling's "Making the Leap" list.
The Giants drafted safety Nat Berhe in the fifth round and added first-year defender C.J. Barnett at the position this offseason, but the pressure now falls on veteran Stevie Brown to fill the void left by Hill's latest indiscretion.
The latest "Around The League Podcast" breaks down the news and examines developments from the first week of OTAs.