It looks as if we'll soon have some clarity on this sticky issue of who did and who didn't test positive at the NFL scouting combine.According to a report on ProFootballTalk.com, the NFL's 32 teams will receive a list of the players who tested positive on Monday or Tuesday of this week, giving them a couple of days before the draft to digest the information and determine how it should affect their draft-day decisions.
When the list does come out, and when the names on it are made public, the NFL will finally be through with an ugly part of its offseason.
Players such as Percy Harvin, B.J. Raji and Brian Cushing have all been the subject of rumors and reports about positive drug tests over the past several weeks. There has been much arguing, finger-pointing and denying about this stuff, and there has been nothing from the league except teams saying they haven't got the list yet.
Reading through the league's drug policy, you begin to understand why this process might have been so drawn-out. As I understand it, every player submits an "A" sample and a "B" sample for testing. If your A sample tests positive, the league's "independent administrator" contacts you and sets up a time to have the B sample tested. If the B tests negative, then you're clean. If the B tests positive, then you're busted, though you get the right to appeal.
So even if a guy flunked the test on his "A" sample, that doesn't mean he'll be on the list the teams get this week. Again, that's as I understand it.
I wonder if the league has to come up with a pre-employment testing system that's more different (in administration and in punishment) from the regular drug policy than the current one is. As it stands, the secrecy and time involved in the combine testing program leaves itself open to the kinds of problems we've seen in the case of, say, Raji this month. The system seems vulnerable to teams, agents and others who might want to spread information about a player in the hope that they can affect his draft standing and guide him to certain spots and/or teams. More transparency would help combat that, though I understand it's tricky when dealing with issues of personal privacy and drug testing.
Now, if somebody did test positive at the combine, and his name is on the list, I think it's completely fair that his draft status would be affected. Everybody knows they're going to be tested at the combine. It's what, a week long? If you can't stay clean for that short a period of time, when you KNOW you're going to be tested and examined in almost every way possible, you deserve to suffer consequences as a result.
"If you test positive for anything at the combine, it brings up the question of whether or not it's habitual, and it brings up the intelligence question as well," NFL.com draft analyst Mike Mayock said on a conference call earlier this week. "There aren't many GMs or coaches I know that would be real excited about having a guy on their team who was dumb enough to test positive at the combine."
Amen, Mike. Amen.
