The kings of misdirection, By: Dave Perkins

NFL's new drug testing policy much ado about nothing and keeping status quo

January 26, 2007

Here's a new one for our world of acronyms: NFL plus EPO equals more BS.

This is saying something, but probably no organization in the wide world of sports that can pee in your ear and tell you it's raining quite like the National Football League.

The International Olympic Committee, Major League Baseball, Gary Bettman and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment all have their moments, but the NFL wins it here in a photo finish. The league's latest announcement about drug testing is yet another reason.

The almighty NFL, answerable to no one, ever, for anything, trumpets that it will begin cracking down on EPO, another of those nasty performance-enhancing drugs.

"NFL gets surprisingly tougher with drug cheats," one headline read, and the story underneath it contained the bold-faced assertion that "Players will be tested more often and it will be harder for them to cheat'' and "For the first time, players in a major professional sports league will be tested for the blood-boosting substance EPO."

All that may be true in its own way, but closer to the real truth is this: If every player in the NFL were cheating by using, say, sugar, the NFL would loudly introduce a new test for salt, then sit back and wait for the applause.

EPO – erythropoietin by its button-down name – is the cheating agent of choice in certain sports in which endurance is required. Bicyclists, cross-country skiers and swimmers have been nabbed using the blood-booster, which basically increases oxygen in the blood and aerobic capacity of muscles. It has no discernable advantage for athletes whose sport depends on bulk and power and operates in brief (as in 40-yard) bursts. There is no suggestion football players are using it.

Human growth hormone, which is pretty much undetectable, sounds like the cheating drug of choice in football these days. For years it was steroids and still occasionally, when someone makes a mistake, the word steroids pops up, as in the case of San Diego star Shawne Merriman. The NFL says it is "looking into" the HGH situation, but, in the meantime, will crack down on EPO. It's like that Monty Python skit where the guy is teaching self-defence against an attacker who comes at you with a piece of fruit. Last week loganberries, this week a banana.

So what's the point of it all? Public relations and little else. Gambling is a huge part of the league's popularity, but it simply forbids all mention of the subject. Likewise drugs. The NFL has the greatest problem of any pro sport with performance-enhancing drugs. It is not possible that every one of these 330-pound linemen, most of them faster than running backs were 30 years ago, got that way on hay and oats, as they say at the racetrack. High school offensive lines averaging over 300 pounds isn't solely explained by proper nutrition and weight training.

The NFL's response is simply to deny everything and claim to have the strictest tests. When an uncomfortable situation arises, like Merriman's, it responds with this EPO misdirection play. (Merriman, a terrific player, did his four-game punishment and returned as if he'd been away with turf toe. During the Patriots-Chargers playoff game, not a word was said by the television announcers – all controlled by the league – about the reasons for his absence. Someone mentioned how it probably cost him the award as NFL defensive player of the year, but didn't mention the reason for his vacation.)

Abraham Lincoln famously said you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Well, Honest Abe didn't know about the NFL and the NFL is out to prove that Abe didn't have it right, either. It's succeeding, too.