NFL players' stance on HGH is unconscionable

The NFL keeps declawing defenses, declaring bounties as the football equivalent of assault-and-battery, altering special teams rules so that guys won't come back 20 years after retiring and sue the league because they're suffering from dementia and depression.

Fine. I understand that.

Commissioner Roger Goodell is doing the right thing here, throwing the book at Gregg Williams, Mickey Loomis and Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints, who perpetrated and covered up a bounty system. And yes, I wish he had given Payton another year for having the temerity to appeal his suspension.

This is what I don't understand: Why have players been dragging their oversized feet for more than a year on human growth hormone (HGH) testing?

I don't understand why a WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) test that is now minimally invasive and proven accurate has found so much opposition by the same players who say they want to take some of the violence out of the atavistic game of professional football.

I don't blame the NFL's powers-that-be for the fact that stadiums have turned into low-grade killing fields.

I blame the players, who don't respect one another enough to eradicate a performance-enhancing drug that is part and parcel of their game. A drug that makes athletes bigger, stronger, faster and helps them recover from injuries more quickly. A drug that I believe is far more prevalent than most people are willing to concede.

Maybe you remember a conversation I had with the passionately honest former Indianapolis Colts wide receiver (now New England Patriot) Anthony Gonzalez. We spoke at training camp last year.

"How many guys are on it? That's hard to say,'' Gonzalez said. "It could be 10, it could be a 100 or more. Either way, it's too much. But around the league, you see guys on Sunday, and things don't add up. They don't look right. I see guys I saw in college, now they're in the NFL and they look totally different.

"I don't know how prevalent it is at this point, but to say that it's not being used, that's wrong.''

Want to know why so many guys are getting hurt? It's because you have 265-pound linebackers and 215-pound safeties who run ridiculously fast 40-yard dash times and are nothing more than human bullet trains. Just about everybody is bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, and it's not all because of improved training methods and nutrition.

It amazes me how we can't put two and two together:

In baseball, guys who hit 12 home runs suddenly became 40-home run guys and the game's keepers of the flame, the baseball writers, suggested the ball was juiced. Really? The players were juiced. It was an epidemic.

Now we're sitting around, scratching our point noggins and wondering why concussions and other horrific injuries are going through the roof in the NFL. It's really not complicated: It's human growth hormone. Not Williams and his goofy speeches, or bounties, or any of that other extraneous stuff. It's the juice. The players are juiced.

What percentage?

This is a total guess on my part, and we have no way of knowing for sure without testing, but based on casual, off-the-record conversations I've had with players, I'd bet at least a quarter of the league avails itself of HGH.

Why wouldn't they?

"To think it (HGH) isn't out there is really ignorant when you consider what can be gained by it with very little risk of getting caught,'' Gonzalez said. "Before testing, the only way you got caught was if you were arrested with it or ended up on a supplier list.

"If I could give someone on Wall Street a pill that gives them all the intelligence they need to beat the market -- like (the movie) 'Limitless' -- and it was illegal but there was no fear of getting caught, I can promise you there would be people lined up around the block for that pill.''

If the players don't respect each other enough to eradicate HGH from the game, why should the NFL worry its head over a culture of violence that permeates the game?

Understand, what the Saints did was wrong. We all get that. When you start to institutionalize and monetize dirty play, that's an issue that has to be addressed -- especially after the league had issued previous warnings to the Saints franchise.

But violence is part and parcel of the game, as is intimidation. When Colts general manager Ryan Grigson talks about offensive linemen who will "play to the whistle,'' it's really code for wanting guys who will play through the whistle.

Locker rooms are no place for the faint of heart. I see it all the way down at the high school hockey level. If an opponent takes a dirty run at one of our players, it's understood that once we get a comfortable lead (which is rare), we can take a run at the offending player.

Now, just because there is HGH testing, it doesn't mean it will be eliminated from the game. The detection window is quite small, just 24 to 48 hours, so it's still a risk a lot of players will continue to take if random testing is instituted. But it's a start; a minor deterrent, but a start.

The NFL cannot change the culture unless, and until, the players are willing to change the culture. That culture change begins by accepting HGH testing. And all of the NFL's rules changes and fines will make only the slightest dent.

(source Indianapolis Star)