Who wants to be picked No. 1? Tough draft to figure out - USATODAY.com
Monday, April 21st, 2008I’m a huge NFL Football fan, so I’m always picking up on how the league treats its cannabis-using players. We’ve followed the stories of Ricky Williams and Michael Vick and Mark Stepnoski and others, and I’m always left wondering how the league can be so tolerant of so many opioid and narcotic painkillers used by their players, yet so intolerant of marijuana use? (Well, I know why: marijuana is illegal and painkillers keep star athletes on the field.) The issue has been raised about the college football players predicted to be chosen early in the upcoming NFL Draft:
Who wants to be picked No. 1? Tough draft to figure out - USATODAY.com
Among the issues that have affected perspective on this draft:
• [LSU defensive tackle Glenn] Dorsey’s right shinbone, injured in 2006 and still a subject of debate even as he continues to be rated among the top three players on most draft boards.
• Major concerns surfaced about Kansas cornerback Aqib Talib and Michigan receiver Mario Manningham, who both tested positive for marijuana yet remain first-day prospects on most lists.
At February’s scouting combine in Indianapolis, Dorsey confirmed his leg injury to NFL team doctors who questioned whether he was fully recovered from a stress fracture in his tibia. He also admitted it still hindered him throughout last season.
Dorsey told NFLDraftScout.com that he took painkillers before each game last year and wore a bone stimulator in the spring of 2007 for as much as 18 hours a day. Although he also insisted he was completely healed, he acknowledged that doctors examined him for nine hours one day at the combine.
“Yes, I took painkillers and, yes, I wore the stim through the summer,” Dorsey said at the combine. “But I played the whole season. I will take whatever tests the doctors ask, but I am telling you, I am ready to go.”
However, in a league recently traumatized by off-field issues, feelings are less clear regarding Talib and Manningham.
Talib admitted his prior marijuana use during team interviews at the combine and told reporters that it was “in the past.”
Manningham denied using marijuana at the combine. But since then, he’s hired a new agent, gotten into better shape and sent a letter to NFL teams recounting past use of the drug. Pro Football Weekly obtained a copy of the letter that said, in part, “I don’t use marijuana anymore — and I have passed tests since. … I am writing this letter because I just want a fair evaluation.”
So the guy who played through an entire season with a fractured leg by gobbling Percocet, whose workouts have shown him to still be not completely recovered, he’s just as much of a draft day question mark as two star players who’ve used marijuana?
C’mon, it’s not like it’s a performance-enhancing drug. I’m pretty sure players don’t do bong rips before hitting the field; pro football plays are complicated and short-term memory problems would hurt performance. Also, you do get time and balance distortions while high, and that can’t be good for catching passes or tackling runners.
But if a pro athlete abuses his body for three hours of football violence on Sunday, how can we question his Monday use of marijuana to recover from the pain and stiffness? Instead, we pump them full of narcotics that they end up getting addicted to like Brett Favre (anyone want to bet he wouldn’t hold the all-time consecutive starts streak for a QB without that stretch of Vicodin addiction?)
