The NFL and the NFLPA are making official changes to their rules on violations of drug tests. Specifically, they are making changes to the punishment for violating the NFL’s policy for drug use. While some of the changes they are making will end up benefiting players, in other ways, it will be more troublesome.
NFL Announces Official Changes For Drug Violations
The rule changes benefit the players in some ways, specifically, that teams will no longer be informed of which substance of abuse the player is using and tested positive for. The teams will only be informed how long the suspension would be for the violation.
In addition to that, the fines for positive tests are going to be reduced which will certainly benefit players, and the NFL changed the rules for cannabis levels. They raised the level of cannabis needed for players to be under the violation for substance use. So players will be allowed to smoke more cannabis, among many other changes.
There are, however, some rules that players will definitely not like. Specifically, players in the past seasons have usually posted about their ‘surprise’ drug tests, and that they must have played well in order to get the test.
Usually, players will get the slip notifying that they have been selected to be drug tested and then the players make light of the situation and post it on social media. If they do that now, they will be fined heavily! Per the new rules, if players do any type of “recording or posting the collection process” on social media that will come with a $15,000 fine.
Even though layers probably won’t like that new part of the rules, they should be happy with everything else that is coming with these new changes.
Some of the other changes that will take place include an extended window for PEDs after a player is notified, as well as a reset count for missed tests if any player does not miss any tests for an entire year.
So as an example, if a random player misses multiple tests as a rookie and then again in his 4th season playing, he would be counted as having two missed tests in his career. This is changing now, as under the new rules, his count would go back to zero after he completed a year’s worth of tests.
“Last week, we reached agreement with the NFL on several beneficial changes to the policies,” the NFLPA memo says, according to CBS Sports.
All of these new rules will go into full effect on December 6th.
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