Jim Harbaugh Speaks On Seattle Seahawks’ PED Issue
By Daniel Nicks
The Seattle Seahawks are no stranger to self-inflicted adversity. Most recently coming at the hands of Bruce Irvin, who was suspended four games after failing a PED test.
San Fransisco 49ers’ head coach Jim Harbaugh has taken notice of his rivals’ struggle with performance enhancing drugs and offered his thoughts.
"“I’ve definitely noticed it,” Harbaugh told Bay Area reporters on Tuesday. “You don’t know what it is. Even when people say what it is, you don’t know that that’s what it is. I’ve heard this thrown out or that, but that’s usually the agent or the players themselves saying it’s, for example, Adderall. But the NFL doesn’t release what it actually is, so you have no idea.… “It has no place in an athlete’s body. Play by the rules,” Harbaugh said. “You want to be above reproach, especially when you’re good, because you don’t want people to come back and say, ‘They’re winning because they’re cheating.’ That’s always going to be a knee-jerk reaction in my experience, since I was a little kid. We want to be a above reproach in everything and do everything by the rules."
There have been reports that the Seahawks have gathered together on multiple occasions to tackle the issue and that Pete Carroll is making a 24/7 commitment to eliminating any PED use. Small changes like this on a league-wide scale, coupled with awareness, should ultimately go a long way in limiting the use of performance enhancing drugs and help in protecting the integrity of the sport.