So in the midst of my net surfing here this evening, I came across this little story from NOLA.com. It's about the Saints players that are currently caught up in the current StarCaps/Bumetanide row. The interesting part comes from this little bit at the bottom of the article.
McAllister said he had been taking the StarCaps pills for at least four years, and that he had sent them in for testing when he began taking them.
To borrow a line from Sheila Broflovski. . .what What WHAT!?
So let me get this straight. Deuce McAllister, who strikes me as a fairly intelligent, reasonable guy, has been taking these pills for four years. When he started taking these pills four years ago, he sent them in to the league to be tested. Obviously, the fact that he's been taking them all this time means that the pills had been approved by the league, would it not? Again, I think Deuce is a fairly intelligent guy, and if the league had said not to take these things, he wouldn't have been taking them. And, obviously, nothing came down from the league telling the players NOT to take them.
Deuce McAllister has been taking these pills for four years. . .and this is the first time he's tested positive for a banned substance?
Really?
Seriously?
Now, I'm no Jack McCoy or anything, but I fail to see how the league could suspend players for taking a supplement that they had approved of. The makers of these things added Bumetanide to them recently, in violation of federal law (which explains why they've closed up shop). They would have had to slip it in there after the fact. . .Bumetanide has been banned since 1989, and the pills surely wouldn't have been approved had the league labs found it in there from the start.
So, if all of these players were taking StarCaps, they were taking a supplement that, from all appearances, had been approved by the National Football League.
The NFL can't really suspend a bunch of guys for taking a supplement that they had approved of and had been illegally altered without anybody's knowledge. . .can they?