Read the opposing argument from Sports Geek.
As a sports fan I get quite disgusted with repeated occurrences of hearing about how athletes, either knowingly or unknowingly, took performance-enhancing drugs. It doesn’t matter what sport it’s in. Recently, Texans linebacker Brian Cushing was suspended four games after testing positive for hCG. That falls in line with the rules set by the NFL. I’m perfectly fine with that punishment, obviously. However, when talk began to center around the possibility of taking a revote for Defensive Rookie of the Year, I cringed and shook my head. Thankfully, in the revote, the voters chose not to change their earlier decision. Also, the fact they decided to revote totally opens up a can of worms and sets a disturbing precedent.
Obviously, no one is condoning the fact that Cushing violated the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy. But I have questions about how all of this came out. Cushing supposedly tested positive back in September. What month are we in now? May?! Why are we just finding out about this now? Why weren’t the voters even told about this when they originally voted? Does it take that long to find out the results? It does not! The original voting of this award was done shortly after the end of the regular season in January. How realistic is it to overturn an award given four months ago?
Flash back to 2002. Then Carolina Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers won the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. This was despite Peppers violating the league’s drug policy. It turns out he took a banned dietary supplement. What he took is beside the point. If it was okay then, why shouldn’t it be ok now? That’s what voter John McClain of the Houston Chronicle based his vote on. He said, “In good conscience, I couldn’t NOT vote for him after voting for Julius Peppers in 2002 knowing he’s tested positive.”
In addition, a Pandora’s box of problems is opened up if you revisit history and change the chartered course set some four months earlier. If this revote had overturned the previous decision, the NFL would have set a precedent not only for its own sport, but for other sports as well. What if other award winners test positive at some point in the future? Maybe he was juiced up during his award winning season. How do you determine if that was the case? To avoid any future problems, the AP should have just stuck with its original vote and left it at that. It just wouldn’t be worth the headache that it would have caused if the award had been rescinded.
The decision has been made. The people, or in this case, the voters, had already spoken! Stick with it!
