So, Brian Cushing, NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year for 2009, has been suspended for the first four games of 2010 because of a positive test for PEDs in September, 2009.
Not that anyone besides me cares, but once again, it is interesting to see how differently the NFL and MLB are treated in regards to performance enhancing drugs.
The Cushing suspension is not a big story. There's some discussion, but no outrage, no calls for Congressional hearings, none of that.
As a point of comparison...can you imagine the uproar if, for example, Evan Longoria were to be suspended because early in 2008, he tested positive?
We'd have sanctimonious columns, demands that Longoria be banned for life, lectures about how awful it is that MLB let a guy play all season, and even be awarded the Rookie of the Year award, when it knew he had tested positive.
There's be calls for a lifetime ban, tut-tutting over how MLB can't get its house in order, how it is forever tainted because of drug use.
The NFL, though? No one cares.
I've mentioned this before, but my theory is that, on a certain level, people expect there to be PED use in the NFL. The players are bigger, they're stronger, collisions are more violent...on a certain, perhaps subconscious level, I think fans -- and, more importantly, the media -- accept the notion that lots of players are going to use PEDs.
And the guys who are the most obvious candidates aren't the quarterbacks and running backs, the "skill position" players that everyone knows and talks about. No, it is the linemen and linebackers, guys who are huge but who are also largely anonymous.
Baseball, for whatever reason, is different. Baseball is held to a higher standard than football is, when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. So members of the media harp on Barry Bonds and how big he got and his headsize, while ignoring the 300+ pound linemen in the NFL, not questioning why so many football players are so much bigger and stronger.
This hypocrisy frustrates me.