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Bryant, NFL drug policy both to blame for suspension

5 min read

The bad news for the Steelers was Martavis Bryant, their wide receiver who was being counted on to be a major force in one the best offenses in the NFL, was suspended four games for testing positive for marijuana.

The good news was it got people to stop talking about them signing one of the most hated athletes in American sports history a couple of days earlier.

Mike Vick would never admit it, but could you blame him for being just a little bit glad about Bryant becoming the focus of the media?

By all accounts, it takes a moron of the first degree to fail an NFL drug test. Bryant is obviously not the brightest bulb on the Steelers Christmas tree.

The only thing dumber than Bryant getting caught is the NFL testing for marijuana in the first place.

Former Atlanta Falcons running back Jamal Anderson said, when he played, 40 to 50 percent of NFL players smoke weed. Now, he said 60% is the bare minimum.

One assistant coach told The Bleacher Report, “If you tested the players during the season every week, we wouldn’t be able to field a league. We’d have to merge with the CFL.”

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin seems to be pretty close to his players.

Do you think he doesn’t know his players smoke the stuff?

The system is so easy to beat it’s obvious the league is saying, go ahead and smoke it, just don’t get caught.

It’s one thing for the Steelers to be going to New England a week from Thursday to open the season without their best running back and their second-best wide receiver because of an injury in a stupid exhibition game, but it’s quite another to be missing them because of plain stupidity.

• There was a time when I rooted for Mike Vick to suffer a career-ending injury. I never wanted to see him suffer an injury that would affect his quality of life, just one that would make it so I wouldn’t have to look at him on a football field again.

That was when he came out of prison in 2009.

You don’t know anybody who likes dogs more than I do, and when I read details of what Vick did to dogs he used for his dogfighting ring, I wanted to see someone strap some pork chops on him and throw him into a cage with some really angry, hungry pit bulls.

I’ve softened over time and come to believe the prison time he did, the millions he lost and the work he has done speaking out against animal cruelty earned him a second chance.

But I couldn’t have him on my team.

Of course, I also would have cut Ben Roethlisberger after he was accused of sexual assault for the second time. I used to think the Rooney family had a line that could not be crossed, but if that has ever been true, it sure hasn’t been for a long time.

But, do you know what? Signing Vick was an excellent football move. He was probably the best unemployed quarterback available and he has never run an offense with as much talent as the 2015 Steelers. That, of course, could change faster than you can say, “Pass me the bong.”

He played on a bad Jets team last year that was intent on developing a struggling second year quarterback and, in case you’ve forgotten, he was the quarterback for the Jets when they beat the Steelers.

Vick can still run well and if Roethlisberger should miss a few games with an injury, the Steelers would have a much better chance of winning with him than they would with Bruce Gradkowski or Landry Jones.

Bringing him in now gives offensive coordinator Todd Haley time to come up with a package of plays to take advantage of Vick’s running threat.

When they have their full roster intact, the Steelers are a better team than they were before they signed Vick.

• Before the first game of the 2015 season, Auburn University did a nice job of contributing to the college football cesspool. The Wall Street Journal reported, in 2013, Auburn’s curriculum review committee decided to eliminate an undergraduate major called public administration because it added very little to the school’s academic mission.

Wouldn’t you like to sit in on some of those classes?

Only 100 students were majoring in it in the fall of 2013 and half of them were football players, including nearly all of the stars on the team.

Maybe you remember that team. It played in the mythical national championship game.

Somebody from the athletic department sent a memo to the curriculum committee that said, “If the public administration program is eliminated, the graduation rate numbers for our student athletes will likely decline.”

Can’t have that. Wouldn’t want to deprive the young men of a useless degree.

You’ll be happy to know Auburn decided to keep its public administration major and it’s still the football team’s favorite.

Auburn is ranked 6th in the preseason polls.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.

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