NFL 'Enhances' Performance Enhancing Policy

Commissioner Roger Goodell and the players' union have agreed to a more thorough and severe set of rules regarding the league's problem with illegal performance enhancing drugs. That's right the NFL has a drug problem.

Many people are unaware of the fact that the average NFL player has increased in size and bulk dramatically within the last couple of decades. The average linebacker has gained a solid 40 pounds, going from 225 to 265, in the last twenty years and cans still move just as fast if not faster than before.

The NFL has been known to gloat about its strict drug testing program in years past but mostly because its allows so many offenders to slip by while a few unfortunate one's get caught and as a result the league only barely suffers itself.

A new study shows that a large amount of players were taking performance enhancing drugs like Human Growth Hormone (HGH) frequently and in unusually high doses. The worst thing about it is that the players' hardly showed any resentment or attempted to be discreet about it, in fact many of them appeared to be proud about "bending the rules."

But, of course, they're not all bad apples, and that's why new boundaries have been set. The new, improved guidelines consist of among other things; increasing the percentage of players tested, the threat of signing bonuses being forfeited if found guilty, and perhaps the most revolutionary rule is the testing for the blood boosting substance EPO making the NFL the only North American professional sports league to test for that.

Previously signing bonuses were immune to such penalty. Nowadays with many deals being supplemented with an extremely high signing bonus, sometime more than the actual contract itself, this new rule should carry some clout. Many use these high signing bonuses to get the players they want but still be able to remain under the salary cap with the lower original contracts.

So, these new rules are clearly an improvement to a faltering system. But these guys already have enough money as far as I'm concerned so the real question becomes what about their reputation?