Well, as a Cowboys fan, this is pretty much a best case scenario for someone in the organization getting suspended for performance enhancing substances:
I can’t believe the NFL is going after coaches. Particularly diabetic coaches looking to improve/extend the quality of life.
I’d really like to know how GH is improving Wilson’s performance as a coach.
We are in the middle of a witch hunt. Absolute ignorance.
I don’t understand how players only get 4 game suspensions. Its like a slap on the wrist,in my opinion.
Ok assuming it really was for diabetes and really did improve his quality of life this is total bs. Someone has a disease that can make you go blind and lead to loss of limbs and you punish a guy for treating it?
[quote]JonP wrote:
Ok assuming it really was for diabetes and really did improve his quality of life this is total bs. Someone has a disease that can make you go blind and lead to loss of limbs and you punish a guy for treating it?[/quote]
The problem in this case would be that even if he is being truthful about what it was used for is his own admissions he was doing this without “proper medical supervision” and that “outside of myself and my fiancée, no one else knew that I was taking anything.”
So basically you have a football coach found buying a performance enhancing substance without prescription from an apparently less than reputable source. This is why he’s being punished, not treating his medical condition. If he had been using it on a doctor’s recommendation with a legitimate prescription then I doubt he would being suspended for it.
Edit: I didn’t mean to sound unsympathetic about his condition or to suggest that his reasons were anything other than he has stated. I just think that someone who has been around the league as long as he has should really have known that someone in his position acquiring it in this manner would be looked upon in an unfavourable light.
[quote]Big_Boss wrote:
I don’t understand how players only get 4 game suspensions. Its like a slap on the wrist,in my opinion.[/quote]
Yes 4 games is pretty much a slap on the wrist, but isn’t the 4 game suspension only for first offenders? I think the penalties increase quite steeply for repeat offenders. I don’t know if it’s still the case but once a player had been suspended for a banned substance related offence they were required to be subject to more frequent drugs testing than non offenders.
When in the NFL you’re required to fill out the proper paperwork before taking pretty much anything more than tylenol.
I think the wild part about all of this is that it is a coach and while I am not 100% sure, I cannot believe they test coaches. I think it has more to do with his name coming up as part of general steroid investigations and him admitting to what he did. But a $100K fine? He is a QB coach - he cannot be making enormous amounts of money, so that’s just an absurd hit to his paycheck.
In the end, his greatest mistake in all of this (at least in terms of how it is turning out) is that he did not get the GH through his own doctor.
4 games is not a slap on the wrist. There’s 17 weeks in a football season. So a 4 game suspension is about 1/4 of the money they make all year. It’s like someone who makes 40k a year getting fined 10k.
This is true, but when they’re earning a minimum of something like $250k (probably more by now, I haven’t checked the figures lately) we’re not talking about reaching a point of major hardship. When you compare it to other sports like athletics where you can get bans running to years for a first offence, or soccer where a guy got an 8 month ban for just missing a test despite having no prior missed tests or positives a 4 game suspension is pretty lenient.
[quote]andymkb wrote:
This is true, but when they’re earning a minimum of something like $250k (probably more by now, I haven’t checked the figures lately) we’re not talking about reaching a point of major hardship. When you compare it to other sports like athletics where you can get bans running to years for a first offence, or soccer where a guy got an 8 month ban for just missing a test despite having no prior missed tests or positives a 4 game suspension is pretty lenient.[/quote]
Why are we comparing football to other sport’s policies? Are they the gold standard now, I thin not. Forget the money aspect, a 4 game suspension is huge, not only for the player but also the team. If a key player is gone 4 games that can make a big impact on that team’s season and playoff hopes. The only reason this particular incident happened is because the Senate is all over sports organizations (which I personally think is bullshit).
[quote]andymkb wrote:
This is true, but when they’re earning a minimum of something like $250k (probably more by now, I haven’t checked the figures lately) we’re not talking about reaching a point of major hardship. When you compare it to other sports like athletics where you can get bans running to years for a first offence, or soccer where a guy got an 8 month ban for just missing a test despite having no prior missed tests or positives a 4 game suspension is pretty lenient.[/quote]
Assistant coaches have league minimum salaries? I think you are mistaking player salaries with coaching salaries. I am sure he makes decent money, but 100K is a huge fine for a non-player.
I was comparing them to clarify why I agreed 4 games to be a slap on the wrist, and that is that in the NFL players get off very lightly for getting caught compared to what would happen to them if they were making their living in many other major sports.
Opinions on which sport has a better standard than another are subject to personal views on the whether substance use is a major issue or not and don’t change the fact that while the NFL may be strict compared to other major US sports like baseball, it is still very lenient compared with many major sports outside. At no point did I say any set of standards was right or wrong so I don’t see where you got the gold standard part from.
I agree with you that governments should keep out of this area of sports as much as possible, but while those involved in this particular case only got caught because of that interference it doesn’t change the fact they were breaking the rules as the NFL already had it’s substance abuse policy in place before the politicians started poking into things they weren’t qualified to advise on.
[quote]Kuz wrote:
I think the wild part about all of this is that it is a coach and while I am not 100% sure, I cannot believe they test coaches. I think it has more to do with his name coming up as part of general steroid investigations and him admitting to what he did. But a $100K fine? He is a QB coach - he cannot be making enormous amounts of money, so that’s just an absurd hit to his paycheck.
In the end, his greatest mistake in all of this (at least in terms of how it is turning out) is that he did not get the GH through his own doctor.[/quote]
The thought that they would test coaching staff blew my mind as well, but from what I gathered they either caught him buying or got his name from a dealer.
However his assertion that it was “ludicrous” that he could have been buying for someone else doesn’t cut it. I would almost assume that any coach buying performance enhancing drugs would be buying for a player and not for himself. But I do think his story about medical reasons is credible.
There is such a stigma around steroids, hormones, creatin and even whey protein, that if I was in anyway involved in professional sports I wouldn’t want anyone to know that I was using any of the above either.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
andymkb wrote:
This is true, but when they’re earning a minimum of something like $250k (probably more by now, I haven’t checked the figures lately) we’re not talking about reaching a point of major hardship. When you compare it to other sports like athletics where you can get bans running to years for a first offence, or soccer where a guy got an 8 month ban for just missing a test despite having no prior missed tests or positives a 4 game suspension is pretty lenient.
Assistant coaches have league minimum salaries? I think you are mistaking player salaries with coaching salaries. I am sure he makes decent money, but 100K is a huge fine for a non-player.
[/quote]
The poster I was originally responding to was referring to 4 game suspensions (not what Wilson was given according to the report) so I assumed he was talking about the substance abuse policy generally rather than Wilson’s case alone and responded based on that assumption.
That is a very harsh fine, but it isn’t that surprising to me having seen the low tolerance the current regime has for actions that can reflect poorly on the league.