Holmes Home For At Least One Game

The Pittsburgh Steelers have announced that WR Santonio Holmes will miss this Sunday’s game against the N.Y. Giants because of internal reasons.  The team did not say that it is disciplinary for Holmes being pulled over with Mary-Jane blunts in his car.  Now, the fine from the cops will be minimal and it is a misdemeanor.  He wasn’t arrested and wasn’t even ticketed.  That will come through the mail.  However, the NFL does not like drugs and they hate Marijuana…ask Ricky Williams.

The NFL will likely find a way to test Holmes and if he tests positive he will be placed into the drug program and will be tested often.  He will also be suspended by the league and could easily miss another game after this one, or maybe even 4 total.  (May want to trade him if you can).  In any case, get Nate Washington who is available in almost all the leagues out there…he will at least start this weekend.

It’s not just Holmes though.  The NFL is throwing down a serious hammer going into the weekend.  Miami Dolphins special teams player Brandon Loyd was fined 5K for a hit that didn’t even draw a penalty during the game last Sunday.  The larger fine however belongs to the big-mouthed Plaxico Burress who apparently learned nothing from his team suspension.

Burress was fined 20K on 3 separate incidents, two on the field for unsportsmanlike conduct and then again for post game comments regarding the officiating.  A total of 45K has been added to Plax’s already bulging donation file for 2008….of course it’s not tax deductible.

Burress isn’t the only one though, not even the 2nd one who is reeling from the ire of his own team and the NFL.  Browns TE Kellen Winslow will miss the weeks game after comments he made following last weekends game in which he criticized the Browns and their organization regarding the “staph” infection he got while injured.  The Browns obviously didn’t like what they heard and suspended him this weekend.

With the amount of fines and the reasons they are levied continue to increase, so does the possibility that an NFL player can be suspended for taking the wrong supplements.  The NFL has informed players, a long time ago, that they are responsible for what goes in their bodies and their blood.  Very few “prohibited” chemicals are allowed to be taken by physician approval for any specific ailment or rehabilitation procedure.  According to a New York Times article, at least 8 NFL players could be facing suspension for a substance called Bumetadine.

The issue at hand is that the drug, found in a weight loss supplement, can “possibly” be used to mask urine drug tests.  The bigger name on that list may be New Orleans Saints RB Deuce McCallister.  

According to Dr. Don Catlin, the former director of the Olympic testing lab at U.C.L.A., bumetanide is banned in sports because it can be used to dilute a banned substance.

“It can be seen as a masking agent because it produces so much water that it dilutes drugs in the system,” Catlin said Friday in a telephone interview. “But we haven’t seen it used by athletes to mask drugs in over 20 years.”

He added: “It is also banned because some athletes need to make weight and it helps flush water out of an athlete’s body. In general, though, it is used by physicians to control blood pressure and reduce the amount of excess water in the body.”"

The other names have not been released and the NFL and the Saints have no comments.  Still, keep an ear out for those names should the NFL deem it necessary to suspend those players.