Packers' B.J. Raji Says He Did Test Positive -- In College

B.J. Raji, the Green Bay Packers' first-round draft pick and No. 9 pick overall, confirmed yesterday that he did indeed test positive for marijuana while a student at Boston College -- but not, as SI.com and others reported some weeks ago, at the NFL scouting combine. From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:

The distinction between the tests is important for a practical reason because if Raji had tested positive at the combine, he'd automatically be in the NFL's substance-abuse program and subject to a four-game suspension if he tested positive again. But because his only positive test was in college, he enters the NFL with a clean slate.

The distinction is important for other reasons, too.

First, it gets to the issue of hasty, sloppy reporting on these kinds of touchy issues in advance of the draft. There's all kinds of information and misinformation flying around before the draft. There's no doubt teams, agents and others who might have a stake in seeing someone's draft status suffer from some kind of rumor are interested in getting rumors out there. And while that process is despicable in and of itself, it becomes more so when a media entity joins in the effort, either knowingly or due to insufficient checking of its sources.

Second, this whole thing with Raji gets to the key question of the difference between testing positive for marijuana while in college (a mistake attributable to the catch-all excuse called "being in college") and testing positive at the scouting combine (a moronic mistake that could justifiably lead teams to believe you are a habitual drug user and/or an idiot).

As several South Park characters said in one early episode, "There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college." If Raji smoked in college, and the Packers know about it, that's not a reason in and of itself for them to pass on him. But if he smoked at the combine, when everybody knew they'd be subjected to every kind of test, then the Packers and other teams would have had good reason to think twice about him. Because nobody wants to draft an idiot, if they can help it.

My guess is, if smoking pot in college were an offense worthy of disqualification, only about 11 guys every year would get drafted. Odds are, if Raji doesn't make it in the NFL, there'll be a whole bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with what he did with his friends on some boring Tuesday night in Newton, Mass., when he was 19 years old.