To some of those that know Giants safety Will Hill well, the positive drug test last month and six-game suspension that followed on Friday was a surprise. Despite two previous NFL bans, they didn't see this one coming.

This is Hill's third suspension in three years with the Giants. All were drug related. And some of his friends and mentors were still stunned when the third came to light recently.

Hill, 24, seemed to finally have his demons locked away and was headed down the right path, which may have led to stardom in the Giants secondary. He finally seemed to be settling down, staying in more and hanging out with the right people.

This came on the heels of a breakout 2013 campaign, and Hill seemed focused on improving this offseason. Then came the latest daunting news in his troubled career.

"A lot of us were surprised," close friend and former Giants teammate Deon Grant said. "It was the last thing that we thought we'd be getting from him as far as his situation. Throughout the season, when I was talking to him, I was trying to get it through to him. 'Do you know how much you could be worth if you just get serious and get focused?' And we were on the same page."

Grant, now retired and working in the community with his Grant D Knowledge Foundation, and veteran safety Antrel Rolle both talk with Hill frequently. Rolle had a similar impression.

"As far as I know this offseason, he was pretty good, he was staying straight and he was taking care what he needed to," Rolle said earlier this month. "He was training hard, working out hard."

Throughout this whole ordeal, Hill has maintained his innocence, according to his friends. He thought he had a realistic chance of the suspension being overturned.

"He felt like he had a great chance of beating it because of the circumstances," Grant said. "He said, 'I'll be honest with you. If it was something that I did, I would tell you I messed up. But I didn't. It was an incident in a club where people were [smoking marijuana] and it got in my system. It's not like how my urine was a certain kind of way before when I did do it. It's the total opposite right now. They found something in my urine, but it's not the same thing they found when I did make that mistake.'"

Details of Hill's positive test have not been disclosed. He has not spoken publicly this offseason and his new agent has repeatedly not returned calls for comment.

The old, I didn't smoke but was around others that did story doesn't appear too plausible, especially coming from Hill. Most studies show that second-hand smoke doesn't lead to positive drug tests.

Considering Hill's history, he's unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt. He was suspended at the University of Florida after getting caught with marijuana. He admitted to marijuana use last year when he was suspended for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy. His prior ban was for the use of Adderall.

But Hill was also arrested in December on a warrant related to child support payments and the arresting officer detected the "odor of burned marijuana" and observed "cigar shavings throughout the vehicle."

Despite his past transgressions, Grant doesn't think Hill has a dependency problem. Neither did another source with close ties to the young safety. They both view this most recent slip as more of yet another isolated poor decision.

"I don't think he has an issue or problem. The truth, I'm almost 80 or 90 percent sure that he doesn't have an issue and he's not putting it in his system himself," Grant said. "This situation again is something where he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Even if his story is true, these are the situations that Hill needs to avoid knowing this could be his last chance. He couldn't afford another slip, and is now likely to be released by the Giants, no matter how much he's progressed during his time with the team.

"Will's grown. All I really tell him is watch the company you keep. It's all I can really tell him," Giants safety Stevie Brown said earlier in the week. "He knows what to do."

Knowing and doing are two completely different things. Hill will now miss the first six games of the upcoming season.

Can the Giants trust him to make the right off-the-field decisions even when he does return? Are they willing to take one more chance, even after saying last year there was no room for error?

Grant hopes they do, one more time, if only because he thinks Hill's a talented young man that was headed in the right direction.

"I hope they give him another chance. I don't want to see him go anywhere else," Grant said. "I like him in the Giants uniform. … But they have a slim tolerance of negative energy in that organization. I hope they can see this last incident was not really him messing up again but just picking the wrong place to be in at the wrong time."