Pittsburghs Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison, Green Bay Packers outside linebackers Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning are among the players listed in the Al-Jazeera America report, witch hunt for performance-enhancing drug users.
But the NFLPA, which is a little stronger than it was in the past, doesn’t like how it’s gone down. There’s an investigation going and Harrison has been called in for an interview. But Harrison will do none of that until some evidence that supports this report comes out.
The NFLPA sent a letter to the NFL this week demanding “sufficient credible evidence” from the league if they want to interview four players implicated as users of in a report by Al-Jazeera America last year.
Then Adolpho Birch, the NFL’s senior vice president of labor affairs league sent his own letter to the NFLPA, quoted by Lindsay Jones of USA Today saying, “While we readily agree that such evidence is required to support the imposition of discipline, nothing in the CBA or the policy imposes such a requirement before possible violations of the policy may be investigated,.
“Obviously, the standard that you advocate—that the league cannot undertake an investigation unless and until it has established the facts and claims to be investigated—would simply ensure that there would be no investigations at all.
“For the same reason, we are under no obligation to disclose all evidence uncovered thus far as a condition to interviewing the players, which would clearly compromise the investigation.”
Birch added that active NFL players have an “obligation to cooperate with league investigations and may be disciplined for failing to do so.”
NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told Jones that the NFLPA had not received the letter yet and therefore had no comment.
The fight begins!