Miami Dolphins linebacker Lawrence Timmons will be back in the lineup for Week 4. In a move announced via the team's official Twitter account, the Dolphins reinstated Timmons, and he will play against the New Orleans Saints in London on Sunday. Linebacker Justin March-Lillard was waived in a corresponding move.
Timmons was indefinitely suspended by the Dolphins after going AWOL the day before the team's season-opening game against the Los Angeles Chargers. As our John Breech explained at the time:
According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, the Dolphins actually filed a missing persons report with several police departments in the Los Angeles area. After hours of trying to hunt Timmons down, police in the area finally located the Dolphins linebacker on Sunday morning, according to TMZ.
So where was Timmons?
The 31-year-old was at LAX with plans to leave California. TMZ has reported that Timmons was trying to get to Pennsylvania because he had "spoken with his baby mama who lives there and had told her he missed the baby and wanted to visit."
Timmons eventually got on the flight to Pennsylvania, and a Dolphins team representative went with him.
CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported last Sunday that Timmons visited the Pittsburgh Steelers during the team's Week 1 bye and before going to California. As La Canfora wrote:
With the Dolphins on an impromptu Week 1 bye due to the approaching Hurricane Irma, Timmons showed up, unannounced, at Steelers practice two weeks ago, their final Friday practice before opening the season that Sunday in Cleveland. According to several sources, Timmons was allowed into the team facility and watched at least part of practice from the sidelines.
Most players and team officials had no idea Timmons would be going to their practice, though a source said he did inform a few coaches of his desire to visit the Steelers. Mike Tomlin was aware but the front office was not, and his presence did seem odd to many given his status with the Dolphins
Sources said he told former Steelers teammates he wanted to be back in Pittsburgh and said things along of the lines of it was a mistake to have ever left. He caught former teammates, coaches and Steelers officials off-guard by his presence there as an under-contract player to another team, but still no one expected what came next.
Timmons did report to California the following Monday, where the Dolphins were practicing all week ahead of their Week 2 game at the Chargers, but then went missing from the team hotel that Saturday evening and into Sunday morning. Sources said when Timmons was tracked down at the airport he told law enforcement that he was trying to get home to Pittsburgh and that he appeared disoriented. Los Angeles police had in fact contacted Pittsburgh police in their efforts to originally locate Timmons, sources said, with the Dolphins believing at one point he may have already returned to Pennsylvania, where his child lives.
It was thought as recently as this weekend that Timmons' suspension would last beyond one week and that he may never play a game for the Dolphins, but the team appears to have quickly reversed course.