wth... two negative tests within days, and then bamm a positive one that is so low it wouldnt have counted last year?

This stinks of either a deficieny of the drug testing or a flat out broken policy.

Where did you call it? I seem to remember a thread where you made a thinly veiled reference to steroids and then when people got upset you whined about how you never actually said steroids.

So did you call it or not?

Either way I'll congratulate you on predicting Brian Cushing's downfall. You are obviously very proud of yourself.

Now Cushing's coverup seems as bad as the crime. Why can't they all be like Andy Pettitte? When he got caught, he admitted it, asked for forgiveness and resumed his career.
Players underestimate how much fans want to forgive them. They want to put them on pedestals. A player enhances his appeal by looking vulnerable and seeking forgiveness.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...e/7001055.html
*************************************
I know most of you guys can't stand Justice, but that just means you're playing right into his hands because he's of course a provocateur.
But I totally agree with his take of what Cushings strategy should have been when he was busted dirty, but I'm guessing the strategy he did use was
based on advise he got from the same guy who told him the dope he was on would be undetectible to league testing.
I've now moved to the place where I'm more interested in the Texans mind set on taking Cushing with their first round pick last year ? Were they just plain incompetant in their efforts to discover he was a doper, or were they more of the same mindset of Cushing himself in the sense that they thought
he could go undetected in testing ? It would be surprising to me if McNair was willing to take him knowing he was a doper and wanting him bad enough even if his use was discovered and revealed ?

NEW YORK -- Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing has won a revote and will keep The Associated Press NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award he won in January.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5183620

And they were likely testing him quite often from the combine on through to now, with only one bleep test result. So, likely he wasn't cheating during the season.

Hcg is not a steroid and it is not illegal, you can buy it over the counter at health food stores. It is sometimes a mask for steroids and sometimes might have a legitmate use, thus on NFL banned list of substances. It can and does appear at low levels naturally in our bodies.

Cushing apparently also passed a lie detector test on this.

I hope it is a big lesson learned for the young man and his career continues very successfully. I think he will be doing well for Texans for many years into the future.

And, I agree with the vote to let him keep his DROY award. It will continue to as a story and suspicions atleast till suspension ends.

Wonder what his next question and answer session with the media will reveal, will he convince everyone he has come clean?

What a colossal waste of time........

But hey, we sure have been in the "news" alot ;)

Seen over in the chron.com comments:

:D

So the league thought the Hcg masked the use of steroids, is that it? Because if Hcg is naturally occurring, then how can they suspend on just that? No matter what, I still think Cushing is the best thing that has ever happened to our defense. We need him o0n the field.

Apparently the league thinks it is a serious offense! Raping a 20 year girl only brings a 4-8 game suspension (probably 6).

Well I am no doctor but from reading so many stories on this, an elevated presence can indicate a substance being used to kick start a testosterone cycle. HcG was detected in very low levels but apparently any detection at all is considered not normal, the reasons range from a health problem or part of a steroid taking regimen or from smoking pot, not to mention the other uncomfortable possibility.

This whole thing was a pointless rush to judgment, the re-vote I mean, Cushing will serve that suspension without pay for this positive test. But why the insistence on doing this so soon? Anyway, there are no winners here: the media, Cushing, the league et al.

What I want to know is how does the test work? Is it one urine test examined once? Is there any accounting for a false positive? Is there any redundancy? That and the year wait for a decision on an appeal is too long. I hope they will come up with a better system, both in terms of accuracy (maybe adopt the blood testing model used by the Olympics but even that is not perfect), and the speed of the appeals and punishment procedures. They can do this in the next CBA but will they? I can't imagine either side willing to budge on this, they will be too busy arguing over money.

I've seen the words "slightly elevated levels" in several articles. I'm curious as to exactly how they establish a baseline for naturally occurring chemicals in the body and exactly how big of a spike there has to be. I was talking with my boss about it yesterday, and she said that her doctor buddy told her that HCG can spike by doing nothing more than having an orgasm. Considering that the increased presence was so minute that it wasn't enough for a positive test last year, this seems like a pretty plausible explanation. He's a young, rich athlete that's also a physical specimen. Dude's ripped. It wouldn't surprise me if the guy gets laid at the gas station. Seems like a plausible explanation to me. Who hasn't gotten laid minutes before heading in to work?

So he says he didn't ingest or inject anything into his body, that he was told the only other way Hcg could show up is by having tumors?

I have no reason to defend Cushing other than the fact that I am a Texans fan like everyone else here.

My problem with the numerous people calling 610 and 790 saying that "he's a cheater and needs to own up to it" is that they are blatenly calling him a bold faced liar. Has there been some recent information that has given you that impression that he should not be trusted or taken at his word?

If TO says no I wont be a cancer in your locker room. Then you can be suspicious. But what has Brian done to deserve the attack hes getting besides holding a press conference and telling you something you didn't know. He suspected he had tumors. Uncommon but still possible.

McClain came on the radio today and said that he was tested for tumors regularly. He just did not want it to get out. Whats wrong with that?

I will end it by quoting ND Kalu "If he is a bold face liar, shame on him, but until we find that out we can only take him at his word"

Eh, so he's not the world's greatest public speaker or communicator...

My guess is that he's on a first name basis with the staff at the local GNC, owns a GNC credit card and took something that briefly flashed him positive...

I'm ready to let it go. He will serve his 4 game punishment. The main thing is to never test positive again.... I don't think we will see a drop in his production...

I'm sorry, but I gotta call that just what it is which is wishful thinking.
If Cushing (or anybody who uses this stuff) doesn't get a premium for their field performance and/or more durability & resilience from this stuff which they use at great peril (Cushing is out 4 games and out 4 game paydays for his first conviction), why would than even mess with it in the first place ?
The only reason I can think of is that get a big, big benefit in performance.

I have already pointed this out a number of times but lets try one more time.

There are plenty of guys who test positive in the NFL for PEDs.

Most continue on with the same performance and don't test positive again. I would guess they are simply more careful on the timing, etc... of what and when they use. But either way it is the case most of the time for guys to go right along like nothing happened.

It is far more rare for guys to test positive and then have a big production dropoff.

And yet you have repeatedly stated as fact, that Brian Cushing will not be anywhere near the player he was before. And your reasoning every time is that he would not have taken it if he was good enough in the first place. But nothing supports your ideas and they aren't rooted in fact. You have no idea what he took (other than the non-ped he was caught with that indicates other PEDs were earlier used), when he took it, what for (injury recovery?), how long he has used, etc... You are just blanketing the whole thing to skip over what you don't know (the details of his use) and ignore what you do know (the overwhelming history that says guys are the same after a positive test as before).

You can hope for him to fail because you don't like cheaters (a reasonable stance for even the most loyal fan, and one I would not disagree with too much), but you can't just state as fact that Cushing will never be the same player again. Nothing supports it.

So I will wait and see what happens when he comes back and I will hope he's the same guy, and while I may be wrong, it is certainly not unsupported wishful thinking.

It's just an opininion based on what I've seen from Cushings work ethic, dedication and style of play. PED use or not, these things won't change.

Barrett makes good points, in fact, one could make a case that he might have better numbers in the future now that he is acquiring NFL experience and is maturing as a player. With Cushing, I think the bigger concern is him staying healthy... I think last year, he was knicked up the whole year... I think if he can stay on the field, the numbers will be there (IMHO, of course)..

My primary concern with Cushing when we took him was that he was frequently nicked up in college, with an assortment of minor injuries. If he was using steroids to recover from these injuries, and the timing of his positive test (right after his training camp injury) suggests that, than how healthy will he be in the future if he can't rely on steroids to recover? Cushing is plenty talented, but I can still see him being a potential bust if he can't stay on the field.

I'm a big Cushing fan. So is my wife who happens to also be a Cancer survivor (over 5 years now - knock on wood), but when she and I watched his presser together the other day she's like, '"c'mon Cush, stop with the BS about the tumors because with that crap you don't go out and run around a football field and play for a season in the NFL at PB-level". OK ?
And no I don't like cheaters, but certainly neither do I want him to be a cheater. The guy was already one of the most popular players on the Texans roster, if not the single most popular. He was certainly one of my favorite players.
Can't deny that all the reports about Cushing, the rumors, his history aren't
a factor. And then I'm very reluctant to think that the league would pop him with such a severe penalty, especially it being his first infraction, without giving him every opportunity to clear himself, without giving him the benefit of the doubt if innocent ?
But I will continue to be a Cushing fan, which means I will hope he was and does remain clean and continue to play at the level he did in 2009. Got my doubts, but more than anybody I hope I'm wrong.

I agree with you that if there was a chance of him being innocent, he would have come out ok through the appeals process. I don't doubt for an instant he was taking something. I also don't understand why so many fans want to just explain it away simply because he wears a Texans uniform.

My only point is that we have no indicators yet as to what kind of player he is going to be from week 5 onwards. Past steroid cases tell us he should be about the same and I'll hope for the best.

Actually, I think you do have your answer already. He played nearly the whole season, getting tested very frequently after he tested positive and as the season went on, his play actually improved. Given that, I suspect this next season will see little drop and may actually see improved play as he will more experience and I suspect that he will have more than a small chip on his shoulder to show he is clean and OK.

I don't think you can take his performance in the months after he was using as an indicator of how he will perform after being completely clean for over a year (we assume).

We have no idea the how, why, when, or even what regarding his steroid use. We just know something was there. Now we can wait and see what happens going forward.

Like I said, most guys perform the same before and after a positive test. Hopefully Cushing is like that. I know that his football instincts were a big part of his success last year and those will be unaffected. I am willing to hope for the best and I see no reason not to.

Care to provide a couple of examples ?

What about if he actually does have a testicular tumor, and that is what is producing the hCG in the tests? The doc says that kind of tumor is usually very agressive. If he gets tested some more and he actually does have tumors, then he may never play again.

But he was informed of the test results in September and would have known shortly there after what they meant. I am assuming he would have been tested immediately after if he truly was not aware of how the result occured.

Julius Peppers is an obvious example. He tested positive as a rookie and then went on with no problems after that. Luis Castillo is another. I'd have to look at who has actually tested to list more specific names, but I also can't recall anyone testing positive and then falling off in production in a big way.

I assume that most of the time the guys either were using them for a set purpose the first time (injuries) or they just got better at hiding them in the future. But I can't think of anyone in the 2000s who was an obvious steroid creation who just disappeared after the positive.

shawne merriman.

Yup, that's very troubling to think his performance and on-field presense might fall off as much as Merrimans did ? Let's face it though, it could be that.

Merriman also has a major knee injury. His decline coincided with the positive test and the knee injury.

IMO it's hard to separate the things.

This is totally false and I don't know where you guys are coming up with this idea.

Merriman before the positive test had 10 sacks and the ROY in 2005. This was the year he tested positive.

Then he sits out 4 games during his 2nd season and still gets 17 sacks in 12 games AFTER the positive test in 2006.

Then he comes back the following year with 12.5 sacks and a career high 68 tackles in 2007. Obviously he had no fall off after his positive test.

THEN HE TEARS UP HIS KNEE. He misses 15 games in 2008. He returns in 2009 and gets just 4 sacks.

You are seriously twisting facts when you claim Merriman fell off after the steroid suspension. He clearly did not and only fell off 3 years later after a blown out knee.

So you're saying Merrimans dramatic decline in production was due more to a knee injury than his discontinued use of the juice ?
At any rate, one again I hope you're right about Cushings return to 2009 form when he's back on the field ? I know I had reservations about his pick,
but his first year turned out OK (I guess ?), so hopefully I'm wrong again about my expectations for his performance in his second year when he comes off of suspension.

No stranger to performance-enhancing drugs himself as an admitted former steroid user during his playing days, former Denver Broncos linebacker Bill Romanowski was critical of suspended Houston Texans linebacker during an interview on SIRIUS radio today.
"Now, as far as Brian Cushing(notes), here's the deal: The only way you can get that substance that he took, hCG, in your body is to inject it, okay?" Romanowski said. "So let's get that clear. So his sob story on TV was, I'm just going to say, was a total lie, okay? … Do you think when he was getting injected in his ass that he didn't know what was going on? Well, bullcrap. Let's get real. Be honest about it, Brian.
"I'm sorry you got caught but be honest about it. What that substance is is a substance from pregnant women's urine and what it does is when you have taken a cycle of steroids it turns your system back on from being shut down. It is very, very common in bodybuilding. That is a bodybuilding supplement, or a bodybuilding drug, where when these bodybuilders go on massive doses of steroids for months at a time, they will take that drug to turn their normal system back on and get it working again."
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slu...n_html-2010521