The announcement regarding the official ratification of the CBA should come any minute.
That CBA will include a major victory for the league: blood testing of HGH for NFL players. Judy Battista of the New York Times reports HGH testing is in the agreement. There will be random, annual testing. The goal is for testing to start at the beginning of the season.
It’s a great victory for the league, but ultimately drug testing is more about public relations than anything else. The drug makers are always way ahead of the drug testers, and HGH is relatively old news in the performance enhancement field for top athletes.
Still, the NFL deserves kudos for being the first U.S. league to institute the testing. Getting the union to agree to blood testing will make it a lot easier to test for any substance in the future.