Now, he is especially thankful that the Seattle Seahawks are allowing him to remain as their radio color commentator for game broadcasts.
"I am deeply sorry. I really look at myself as a person who has high integrity and high character," said the 51-year-old former quarterback, who was MVP of the 1978 Rose Bowl for Washington, starred for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League and set records for the Houston Oilers. "To have these errors in judgment is not my character. I'm sorry to put my family, my friends and the Seahawks through this.
"This is kind of an embarrassing thing for me."
On Tuesday, Moon pleaded guilty to first-degree negligent driving, a reduced charge from the drunken driving count that followed his Dec. 28 arrest by police in the Seattle suburb of Medina after he refused a field sobriety and breath test.
Moon received a 90-day jail sentence, with 88 of those days suspended. Kirkland Municipal Judge Michael Lambo gave Moon the option of serving five days of home detention rather than jail time.
Moon said Thursday he will serve the detention under electronic monitoring in August. He said he will still be able to come to Seahawks headquarters to work during those five days, "but I can't go out to dinner or to the mall or anything like that."
Moon pleaded guilty in August 2007 to first-degree negligent driving and was sentenced to 40 hours of community service, a $350 fine, and drug and alcohol awareness classes. Those charges stem from an April 2007 arrest.
"It's been tough, one of the toughest things I've ever had to go through," he said. "There's a perception out there I have a problem. There's a perception out there that I have two DUIs. There's a perception out there that there is this wild guy driving around Seattle drunk.
"But I have no one to blame but myself for that."
Speaking inside Seahawks headquarters after watching a morning practice of training camp, Moon thanked team owner Paul Allen, chief executive Tod Leiweke and president Tim Ruskell for their support. They are allowing him to return for a fifth season as the team's radio analyst.
When asked if team executives have given him an ultimatum that one more incident would cost him his job, Moon said: "Pretty much, the writing is on that wall that it's going to be that way. It's kind of like, three strikes and you're out."
Moon, a nine-time Pro Bowl passer who also played for the Minnesota Vikings, the Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs through 2000, said he voluntarily underwent a drug and alcohol assessment plus an outpatient treatment program during the last two months. A Kirkland Municipal Court docket for his case listed "defendant complied with alcohol assessment."
Asked if he now believes he has a problem with alcohol, Moon said: "I really don't, but like I said, you never know. I wanted to get professionals to see."
Moon said before these incidents, he used to see people on the street and he could tell they were thinking, "Is that Warren Moon?"
"Now, you don't know what they are thinking," he said. "That uncertainty bothers me."
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