Texans owner Bob McNair personally traveled to New York on Monday, in an effort to persuade Commissioner Roger Goodell to rescind the four-game suspension imposed on linebacker Brian Cushing for violating the league’s steroids policy. Although Cushing suggested in comments to the media that an answer could come as soon as today, McNair has issued a statement indicating that the matter will be resolved at some point in the future.
“I had a meeting with the league’s medical staff and presented additional medical information about Brian Cushing,” McNair said in a team-issued release. “The doctors will review the information and we’ll hear from them at a later date.”
It’s unknown when the league will issue a new ruling. Presumably, it will come before Week 1, when Cushing’s suspension commences.
Meanwhile, this entire procedure cuts against the grain of the internal appeals procedure, which was finalized in May. Think about that for a second. The league repeatedly has chided the NFLPA for joining in litigation aimed at attacked the outcome of the final appeals process in the StarCaps case, accusing the union of failing to properly support the jointly-developed policy on PEDs. How, then, is the league’s willingness to re-open a closed case at the behest of an owner any different? In either situation, someone is trying to circumvent the rules that the NFL and the NFLPA crafted at the bargaining table for resolving disputed test results.
Though it would be hard for the union to point fingers on this one since, ultimately, the unconventional approach could help one of its members, there’s really no difference between the union filing a lawsuit to change the outcome of a settled steroids appeal and a team asking the NFL to re-open the case in the hopes of changing the outcome of a settled steroids appeal.