From the Press Box - Week 15 Food Poisoning Edition

AG is back to talk concussions, Sam Hurd and why if players don't like Mike Mayock they are dumb stupidfaces.

So if I'm a tad groggy today, blame my son for eating a half-cooked hamburger and then spending all last night being ill. Or blame me for buying him said burger on the assumption that it might be fully cooked.

Either way I'm home today and after catching up on the sleep which eluded me last night, I figured it was time to crank out this week's Press Box.

I will not be spending this whole column hacking on Mr.  Nagler for his ill-fate bet with me re: The DenverBroncos.

That's what this week's Hard Count was for.

No, sadly we have to start with serious news and try to recover our good humor from there.

EVEN TRAVIS HENRY THINKS SAM HURD WENT TOO FAR

Last night, former Dallas Cowboy and current Chicago bear wide receiver Sam Hurd was arrested on a charge of attempting to buy drugs with the intent to distribute from a supplier in North Texas.

How many drugs did he try to buy from an undercover cop?

Hurd wanted up to 10 kilograms of cocaine and a half ton of marijuana per week.

Per. Week.

PER.

WEEK.

That's a staggering amount of drugs. Staggering.No wonder he couldn't catch the ball—he was either so coked up he he was accidentally vibrating through a catch like the Flash or he was so stoned to come down off the coke high that he hallucinated the ball was a rabid piranha ready to eat his hands.

Either he has a tremendous drug problem or he was going to sell that. I'm surprised the undercover cop didn't start whooping and hollering like he/she had just hit the Million Dollar Jackpot at the MGM Grand.

Worse? Yes it does get worse by the way. These things always do.

Reports are that Hurd sold to other players (yipes), the police have a list of their names (ACK) and the number of names is in the double digits (HOLY TEBOW, MY HEART, IT'S THE BIG ONE ELIZABETH).

The parentheticals reflect my take on what NFL Commisioner Roger Goodell did when reading about this.

I think Aaron put it best:

Please, dear lord baby Jesus, just tell me there are no Packers on this, apparently double digit, list of NFL players Sam Hurd sold drugs to.

Feel free to insert your favorite team there. This is big and a huge mess. No kidding right? Consider how big it could be, depending on what names are on the list. You figure that no way are there big names on that list but people who are addicted to drugs do incredibly stupid things.

What if?

I can only hope there aren't too many big shocks on that list.The NFL is a juggernaut be we saw how steroids ruined baseball. Sure, this isn't steroids or a competitive balance thing. The repercussions could be plenty big, as could the PR hit.

We're a funny country about drug use. When a famous name gets caught doing them we like to act all shocked and outraged as if they'd shot a puppy with a kitten fired out of a cannon made from babies. Many, many people smoke pot. Many more drink alcohol and beer. Sure one is legal and the other not (in most states) but it's like a scarlet letter beyond almost anything else. We seem to be able to forgive so much but drug use gets touchy. Selling drugs? Even worse.

I'm not saying it isn't a big deal. It is. It's a huge deal, especially in the amounts described. (Seriously, 10 kilograms of cocaine and a half ton of marijuana PER WEEK)

I'm just saying when it comes to drugs, people have a tremendous time shaking their pitchforks and lighting torches. Enough of a good time to breach the goodwill the NFL has? Depends on the reaction by the league, teams and players.

Speaking of players, here's one thought for the NFLPA. This is why the HGH testing needs to be on the top of your 'to do' list. The more you drag your feet—even justified—the more it looks like you are protecting people. Not in a 'we want it to be fair' way but in a 'we know they're cheating but they're OUR cheaters'.

Find a way to get it started before we have a story break about a big player on HGH or worse, distributing it to other players and you have to do it anyway.

Be proactive.

CONCUSSION TEST? I DON'T....NEED...NO....WHERE AM I AGAIN?

I talked about this at length on the Hard Count this week but the league needs to do something about the method to testing concussions.

This JPEG from KissingSuzyKolber.com is funny but also disturbing, because I could see that conversation happening.

Even just looking at the picture makes me ill. The Browns expect me to believe that a) the team physicians had no clue McCoy got rung up like a cash register and b) he passed a concussion test or didn't need one.

They were on the field. The picture CLEARLY shows them on the field. look at McCoy's eyes. Sure, it's a picture and there is a lot we don't know but is it me or does Colt look loopy? To me, he definitely looks like someone who had his bell rung.

He was taken off the field. What, did the team docs say 'how come he needs to come off?' and a player/coach said 'oh he fell down'? You mean to tell me NOBODY said 'oh he ran into a Harrison powered steam engine?' 'He got hit in the jaw?'

Bull crap.

Players want to be on the field (illustrated and reinforced by this excellent piece by Mike Freeman). They will, even when it's flat out stupid, lie to get on the field. Teams WANT them on the field.

Do YOU see a conflict of interest here?

Independent doctors whose job is with the NFL , who cannot be fired or run out of town because they forced a player to submit to a test. To ignore a coaches 'rub some dirt on it' mentality and sit a player.

It won't be a pretty job. You will probably be liked about as much as an Internal Affairs cop.

That's what's needed though. It's what the NFL, players and teams need whether they like it or not.

It was unconscionable McCoy went back in and worse that everyone blamed him for an interception which, let's be honest, he likely doesn't remember throwing. Let's never see that again.

Everybody Hates Chris (Collinsworth)

Forget the 'Hurd List' of cocaine buying, pot smoking players. I want the names of the 237 players allegedly polled by Sports Illustrated to compile a list of the worst TV commentators covering the NFL and have Mike Mayock ON the list, forget ahead of Joe Buck, Mike Irvin and Joe Theisman.

I want names, dates and addresses.

Seriously, even if you don't have the mancrush on Mayock that I do, that's ridiculous. On his best day, Joe Buck couldn't carry Mayock's microphone. Nor could Irvin or Gruden or Collinsworth or any of the other names on the list.

Lists like this are amusing, sure and never to be taken seriously. Still, Mike Mayock is one of the best things to happen to football play by play maybe ever.

Next time you get the chance, listen to how he breaks a play down. It's not the surface crap that you get from 99% of the play by play and color guys in the league. It's rarely filling the air chit chat. He doesn't talk down to you, he assumes you have a brain and talks to you.

He's critical, and maybe that's what the alleged players dislike.

It's too bad they don't like him. If they listened, some of them might learn something.

So that's that.

A whole column and nary a mention of my victory over Nagler!

Well..... maybe one more.

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Comments (17)

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FITZCORE1252's EVO's picture

December 15, 2011 at 05:34 pm

I can't stand anybody who calls games... Including Mayock. Love the guy come draft time, but he annoys me calling games. Not to the level of CC, Buck or Gruden, Jaws, Breneman... I hate everybody, just on different levels.

GBP 4 LIFE

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andrewgarda's picture

December 15, 2011 at 06:38 pm

you are an equal opportunity HATAH.

I can respect that.

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PackersRS's picture

December 15, 2011 at 08:05 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I74BG0YFKUc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLqGDuLnVUw (lil bit raycess for the PC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlvOUG8nuZ4
Not only the guy is brilliant for the NFL experience, he always ends up in games that have some crazy happenings.

He's from college football, and looking at it through youtube, even then the games he called had intense endings.

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FITZCORE1252's EVO's picture

December 16, 2011 at 01:35 pm

That second one is priceless.

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fish/crane's picture

December 15, 2011 at 06:04 pm

For the record, Hurd probably provided drugs to others, not sold them. A difference that some day the law will differentiate because it easy to do:

Whole life insurance policies have to be sold.

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andrewgarda's picture

December 15, 2011 at 06:36 pm

I'd imagine if he was laying out 25k + he was selling not giving it away. even if he was merely taking money from one guy and passing it along to the drug provider, he was likely not doing it out of the kindness of his heart.

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Kendra's picture

December 15, 2011 at 06:55 pm

I doubt he was just giving away the amount of drugs he allegedly requested.

The amount per week is pretty astronomical.

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Kendra's picture

December 15, 2011 at 07:01 pm

I'm really curious about that list and what will happen in regards to that list.

This isn't being caught red handed. It's damning but probably not to the extent where prosecutors would use resources to go after the alleged buyers.

So where does that leave the NFL? Can they suspend a player who has never tested positive based on a dealer's intent to sell? Very tricky.

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Bob's picture

December 15, 2011 at 07:17 pm

The list means nothing, he could just be making it up trying to save his own skin. Someone buying that quanity is a middleman in something much bigger. 1000 lbs/1900 players is about a 1/2 pound apiece every 2 weeks. He's supplying dealers not users.

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PackerAaron's picture

December 16, 2011 at 01:08 am

<em>he could just be making it up trying to save his own skin</em>

He didn't say anything. Law enforcement has the list, not him.

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Bob's picture

December 16, 2011 at 07:58 am

In that case do you have lists of names and phone numbers. If you are doing something illegal does that mean the people on your list are involved. We all have lists of people we know. Not trying to be a defender of Hurd and any of his partners. But someone having your name and personal info does not mean you are involved in what they are doing. They will have to have a lot more than a list of names to implicate anyone and that's really the way it should be. Would you want to go to prison because someone else did something and they had your name and phone number on them.

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PackerAaron's picture

December 16, 2011 at 09:28 am

No - you're not understanding. They didn't <em>find</em> a list. They built it themselves after investigating him for nearly two years.

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Bob's picture

December 16, 2011 at 02:28 pm

I'm always skeptical when I suspect a spindoctor move.
Why release to the public information about the list instead of arresting everyone.

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Bob's picture

December 16, 2011 at 02:46 pm

Unrelated note here Saine, Pickett, &amp; Bishop no practice, Starks limited friday

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PackersRS's picture

December 15, 2011 at 08:24 pm

Man, don't get me started on the criminality of drugs (alcohol and cigarettes cartel/lobby), but we're talking about a 10 to 50 year in prison crime. We're talking about something worse than second degree murder, by the law. IMHO the reaction is absolutely normal. And you don't have visions like seeing piranhas when you're under marijuana, what happens is that the reactions are slower, so the receiver sees a ball far from him, and then holy shit that thing is in my face!

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andrewgarda's picture

December 15, 2011 at 08:45 pm

I was more going for comedy not accuracy on the piranha thing. :D

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FITZCORE1252's picture

December 15, 2011 at 09:35 pm

LOL, we used to get baked before practice, kinda made me focus even more on what I was doing... we used to get baked before everything, actually. Good times... great oldies.

GBP 4 LIFE

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