Evidently he popped for HCG, evidently reported by Shefter on ESPN. Commonly used at the end of steroid cycles. I’m no doctor but from what I have heard and researched, there is no real reason for him to have taken it.
As for the AP revote on DROY and All Pro. I am fine with it. Peppers, Merriman, and Williams were all voted in by the AP after popping. The difference is that the voters knew about it prior to voting and decided that the drugs weren’t enough of a factor to not vote on them. With Cush, none of the voters knew prior to the vote. As his DROY was almost unanimous, I have a feeling he will retain the DROY and All Pro, just not by the same margin.
Since he popped in September and stayed clean the rest of the season, and yes the NFL ramps up their testing on players who have popped, I have no doubt that he will come back this year and play just as hard and just as well as he did in October-December.
It is kind of sad that people are now shouting their "vindication" about taking Cush over Mathews or anyone else. In December all of these "vindicated" people were as excited as anyone else. The young man made horrible decision, I am disappointed in him but I am not going to write the guy off. I did plenty of stupid things when I was his age, the question is whether or not he learned from this.
It does suck that we are losing this key defensive piece, but on the bright side we will get to see how good our depth is. That is the difference between good teams and great teams, depth. Great teams can pull from their bench and hardly miss a beat. It does not matter if he is out for injury or suspension, we would still be going to the bench. These first four games will be an indicator of how far this team really has come under Kubiak and Smith, as well as an indicator of how good a DC Bush is.
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