Jets linebacker Calvin Pace can fully participate in the entire training camp and preseason. But after the last glorified practice played under regular-season game conditions, Pace will be barred from team headquarters for four weeks, due to a violation of the league’s steroids policy.
When the suspension was announced, Pace attributed the positive test to a supplement containing a banned substance.
“This is a situation that resulted from an over-the-counter dietary
supplement that contained a substance that I did not know violated the
league’s policy,” Pace said.
On Thursday, he offered a substantially similar explanation. “[It was] a workout supplement that I had
previously taken before [the NFL] banned substance list changed,” Pace said. “I
lapsed and I take full responsibility for it. [I need to] stay up on
it and know what’s banned and what’s not banned.”
But there’s some inconsistency in his more recent remarks. If he didn’t know what is and what isn’t banned, then he couldn’t have “lapsed,” since he wouldn’t have known he was taking something that he shouldn’t have been taking.
The bigger point here is that the league’s policy regarding anabolic steroids and related substances, which is cloaked (at least in theory) in confidentiality and which strictly imposes four-game suspensions for the ingestion of substances that legally can be bought at the local GNC, provides any player who actually has taken steroids to hide behind the notion that he merely took a legal product without realizing it was going to get him suspended.
We’re not saying Pace is lying. We’re simply saying that, as a practical matter, there’s no way of knowing when a guy has taken steroids, because anyone who violates the policy can say precisely what Pace has said.
Seriously Florio. Instead of trying to be a human lie detector, just report on things that are actually going to make us interested. We know Pace is banned, we don’t care if he should be or not, it wont change anything so just get your nose back in your books, and find a story I won’t get bored of reading about.
He could have lapsed, if by “lapsed” he meant he didn’t pay attention to updates to the list of banned substances. That doesn’t fit the dictionary defintion of the word, but it wouldn’t be the first time a public figure used a word incorrectly. Looking at his entire statement and not one word within that statement, it’s clear he’s saying he did not pay attention to what and what was not on the list.
If Pace is lying, then he’s crafty enough to realize no one believes athletes when they say their supplement was contaminated. People are more forgiving of inattention to detail than they are of cheating.
All that being said, the NFL banned substances list mostly contains prescription drugs or prohormones, the OTC sale of which is illegal. http://nflplayers.com/images/fck/Banned%20Substance%20List%200209.doc. As far as I can tell, that leaves DHEA, pseudoephedrine, and synephrine.
Ha Ha Jets Fan doooooooshes. Thanks for outbidding us. Along with Gholston and your all-star QB, the season is already won for you guys………
they should just make the punishment symbolic of what was taken & the circumstances.
the whole diueretic fiasco could warrant a less suspension than full-on steroids.
or they could just keep steroid tests as that – steroids.