Line of Scrimmage: Cushing saga leaves too much unsaid

Football Betting Lines

05/13/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brian Cushing finally met the media on Thursday, one day after the Houston Texans linebacker was permitted to keep his AP Defensive Rookie of the Year honor following a much-publicized re-vote.

Cushing, who tested positive last September for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a non-steroidal banned substance commonly used to chase the evidence of steroids from the body, finally emerged from behind the curtain to face questions about the situation.

Surprisingly, Cushing argued that his positive test for a banned substance was flat-out false. He offered no apology or contrition, though he did trot out some bizarre nonsense about thinking he had tumors. Cushing also put up an easily-predicted front of defiance behind which the former first-rounder will now have to prove to the world he can be a great player without cheating.

Maybe, unlike Shawne Merriman before him, he'll emerge from his cloud of steroid suspicion as the same, high-level player. And maybe he'll be great without putting any performance-enhancing substances into his body, though I wouldn't bet on it. Because what Cushing couldn't say in that press conference is that if he really started replacing laboratory-produced substances with a Rocky-like diet of raw eggs and protein shakes, he'd be way cleaner than a good portion of the people he has to compete against every Sunday.

Not that the league, the union, or many of the fans seem to give a flip, but a sizeable portion of NFL players is on something. Ex-Redskins and Lions tackle Jon Jansen told HBO Real Sports last year that he thought 15-20 percent of players were using Human Growth Hormone (HGH). Former NFL lineman Dana Stubblefield pegged the number as closer to 30 percent, and Buccaneers running back Earnest Graham said he thought it was more like one-third of the league.

Jansen and Graham have reason to be conservative with their numbers - they're current players who don't want to incite the ire of the teammates that would rather keep this situation as their, and the league's, dirty little secret. So anyone who can apply logic to situations, looking at how the speed and especially the size of players has escalated in the past two decades, could surmise that the number is really closer to 50 percent.

The obvious proliferation of performance-enhancers in the NFL has to be making Cushing feel unfairly singled out in this case. What he couldn't have said before the assembled media at Reliant Stadium is that what he did is hardly unique in the NFL circa 2010, and that he just happened to get caught for it. He couldn't say that those AP voters who re-cast their ballots for someone else the other day just might have made their re-vote for another guy who was taking something else.

Of course, apart from John McClain of the Houston Chronicle, none of the voters who made their new ballots public said anything to the effect of, "They're all on something, why should we hold it against just Cushing?" Some banged their fist on the podium and voted for another player, not that they could ever say conclusively that Jairus Byrd, Brian Orakpo, Clay Matthews, or anyone else had a great 2009 due only to their time spent in the weight room and watching game film. Those who changed their vote from Cushing to someone else - and I accept that there are some really talented people in this group - either switched their vote because of the embarrassment Cushing caused them and the process, because Cushing was stupid enough to get caught and they wanted to penalize him, or because they're naive enough to think that Cushing's case really is an isolated one.

Even those who voted for Cushing the second time around, like Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (who did not vote for Cushing originally), failed to acknowledge the elephant in the room. They instead focused on defending the voting process, worrying about whether this situation would lead to other re- votes if past winners had their viability questioned. The process-defenders used Bill Belichick's 2007 Coach of the Year honor, won in the vast shadow of Spygate, as an example of one that could be revisited if we were to start really studying such honors.

In citing "the process," as if a bunch of writers and broadcasters taking all of 30 seconds to devise an email with their vote attached is akin to some kind of ultra-important government procedure, these voters have missed an opportunity.

What not nearly enough people are saying is that Cushing is being offered up as an exception when it's quite likely what he did was much closer to the rule. The league won't say it, the union won't say it, and sadly, most of the media members who played a major role in this tale haven't said it either.

And you have to believe that Brian Cushing, a 23-year-old young man who stared down a firing squad in Houston on Thursday, wishes someone else was willing to acknowledge the real truth.