Vacchiano: NFL not immune to steroids

The Mitchell Report rocked the sports world last week when it linked dozens of baseball players to performance enhancing drugs. It ruined reputations, tarnished careers and cast a pall over an entire era in Major League Baseball.
 
And if I were the NFL, I’d be breathing a sigh of relief.
 
In the following days I listened to some NFL players react with some combination of outrage or surprise, and all of them smugly believed something like that could never happen in their sport. The NFL has a better drug testing policy, they said. The steroid era in their league, they believe, is nothing but a thing of the past.
 
But if the Mitchell Report taught us anything, it’s that an attitude like that is naïve. Just because the federal government hasn’t caught up with high-profile NFL players the way they seem to have with baseball players over the last few years, doesn’t mean there aren’t just as many football players using performance-enhancing drugs. And just because the NFL didn’t commission a Mitchell Report of its own, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a problem, too.
 
In fact, even the known history suggests otherwise. People sometimes forget that two years ago a doctor in South Carolina was discovered to have allegedly provided steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to four members of the Carolina Panthers – including offensive linemen Todd Steussie and Jeff Mitchell and punter Todd Sauerbrun – some just before they appeared in a Super Bowl. Back in 2003, as part of the federal investigation into the BALCO labs that brought down Barry Bonds, it was revealed that four Oakland Raiders tested positive for THG, a designer, performance-enhancing drug.

At a congressional hearing in 2005, then-NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue testified that 54 players had already tested positive and had been suspended. Another 55 left the league shortly after a positive test. And plenty more have tested positive since then. Last year, Pro Bowl linebacker Shawne Merriman was suspended for violating the league’s steroids and related substances policy, too. In July, Broncos DE Kenny Peterson and Raiders S Jarrod Cooper were suspended. A few weeks ago, Vikings defensive end Ray Edwards was suspended for violating that policy. And Patriots S Rodney Harrison and Cowboys QB coach Wade Wilson also took suspensions when federal investigators revealed they had received shipments of Human Growth Hormone.
 
The list goes on … and on … and on …
 
The NFL is just lucky that none of those names are as big as Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds.
 
The point should be obvious: If you think the NFL is clean, you’re not paying attention. If the NFL thinks it’s clean, then its delusional. Yes, it has one of the most aggressive testing policies in sports. But another lesson from BALCO and the Mitchell Report is that the users are often well ahead of the testers. All you need to know that the NFL likely has a problem is your eyes: Too many 330-pounders who can jump unusually high or run sub-5.0 40s. And a league full of players who take the worst beating in pro sports on Sunday, and have recovered enough to practice by Wednesday.
 
Do you really believe all of them manage those accomplishments by only using a combination of protein shakes and Advil?
 
Of course, there is no way to know how widespread the problem is in the NFL. And of course, it’s possible – maybe even likely – that a majority of its players are clean. To paint them all with the same brush, to make this sound like a rogue league of drug pushers, would be unfair and wrong.
 
But no one should be burying his head in the sand either. Do not feel sorry for baseball because of its drug scandal. Instead, applaud MLB and its beleaguered commissioner, Bud Selig, for having the guts to empower a (relatively) independent and impartial investigator to expose its problem. It’s the most pro-active thing I’ve ever seen a pro sports league do, without any regard to how immediately damaging it could be.
 
In the long run, the Mitchell Report and the exposure of the cheats will be a good thing for Major League Baseball.
 
Maybe the NFL should consider a Mitchell Report of its own.

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