earlier today that some of the players have weight requirements in their contracts and that the majority of the players caught with the weight loss pill were big linemen and such. Obviously Deuce has always played on the heavier side…

so basically that’s how i see it or want to see it… that these guys (whoever the rest may be) were taking these pills to legitimately lose weight… naive i know..

for whatever its worth i still believe in the boogey monster, tooth fairy, and jolly old saint nick

in the ‘Uh-Oh’ Fan Post, yikes! Granted nobody knows for sure, but if those are the side effects of taking the weight loss pill…. humph

Okay back to Bucs land…

Nola.com is reporting that Charles Grant could also be included: link

I don’t want to leap to conclusions, because this is a leak and not how the system is supposed to leak. God forbid this is an error and innocent players’ reputations are sullied. It would be a lot better if nobody heard about this until the process had run its course, etc

That being said, whatever their intention (losing weight, masking agent, etc) there is really no excuse that I can think of for taking a banned substance. My understanding is that players simply need to consult the team trainer or the league about a substance , and they will tell them if any banned substances are contained therin. We’ve seen enough players get nailed due to simply “taking a supplement,” that I don’t think the “Gee, I didn’t know it was banned” defense is really going to fly in my book.

These 3 players, if indeed they are guilty, have placed their team in a serious bind. Honestly, you’d be hard pressed to tell that Grant and Smith had been playing the last few games, but losing Deuce with Bush already out could really be a killer.

i think they are trying to keep weight down. these guys have enough money to take human growth hormone witch is way more expensive than steroids but is nearly undetectible and offers way more positives than steroids. you would think that if they were going to do something illegal they would buy the best thing money could get.

i did vote positve on the poll though…..sometimes our guys have more money than sense..

A professional athlete in the NFL should know better than to put ANYTHING into his body without checking if it contains a “banned” substance. The list is out there, all you have to do is look. Ignorance is no excuse. Whether or not it is covering up steroids is immaterial at this point. Grant and Smith are overpaid anyway, let’s see how Bobby McCray and maybe Dunbar step up, I think they will blow those guys out of the water… (diuretic in-joke) However, Deuce is irreplaceable, and leaves us with no running back?? Well, maybe that’s what Payton wanted all the time.

If these guys were really trying to lose weight, isn’t that why thr team hires trainers. These guys are professionals and are well aware of the rules. They have put the nail in the casket of the 08 season. Payton has lost his team.

1. Apparently, the references to weight loss apply to some of the others who got caught. It seems some of them had weight incentives written into their contracts, and were trying to temporarily lose weight—mainly water—in order to meet those incentives at weigh-in time. Not sure how that applies to Grant, Smith, or Deuce. I still can’t believe Deuce would be taking steroids, though—especially since he did lose weight, and the entire point of steroids is to quickly build up muscle mass.

2. Pierre Thomas is about to get his chance to prove himself. We’ll know if he’s what some of us believed he was by the end of the season…barring injury, which seems likely considering how this season has gone.

3. Ed Orgeron is also about to get his chance to prove himself. He’s going to have to patch together a line with Smith, and maybe without Grant as well. Can he do it?

4. Nez brings up an excellent point. Where has the training staff been this entire season? A pandemic of injuries, lack of conditioning, and now the prospect of having three, or maybe four, players suspended by midseason for violating drug policy? Do the Saints really have a training staff?

5. This team is beginning to resemble New Orleans itself: on the surface, exotic and exciting and unpredictable; and beneath it all, crime and corruption and incompetence. Two years ago, the Saints played as a team, and a tight one at that. Now, it seems they’re just a bunch of guys. This game against the Chargers will probably show us if Payton has indeed lost the team or not: if they rally, play determined and well, then maybe there’s hope. If they just go through the motions, then it’s all over—for Payton, for Loomis, and for this incarnation of the Saints. The team will have to be torn apart and retooled, and there’s not enough in the draft stockroom to do what’s necessary.

Couldn’t agree more with you Nez….

Looks as if, with all the injuries, bad coaching decisions, bad football player decisions, & bad kicking, that this team has in fact, mailed it in for the 08 season..

Another year of coulda shoulda’s….

Whats more discouraging, in my eyes, this year has had a huge drop off of elite teams and to see the Saints struggle like this when they, along with Dallas were the preseason favorites to make a deep run in the playoffs is as I stated, DISCOURAGING!

All we’ll have are the few details/facts revealed by the players, league, and team.

What it can only be boiled down to, with even some degree of certainty, is a high and low end range of possibilities:

1) At best, the players are naive and stupid for taking a risk in taking something they knew was banned, or that they didn’t know enough about to know it was banned, or naive/stupid/risky in trusting that whoever told them to take it was watching out for their best interests, and wouldn’t let them take something that was banned.

2) At worst, they are cheaters and liars, either for intentionally taking a banned substance to lose weight, or taking it as a masking agent to cover the use of steroids or some other illegal or banned substance.

Again, I don’t think we’ll ever know the full truth, or know that what we are hearing is the full truth.

I’d like to think of the players as stand-up guys that fall under the stupid/naive category, but I also realize that I don’t really know and there’s no way of ever knowing the true measure of any NFL player’s (or coach’s or GM’s or referee’s) character from only watching them on TV in games and reading about them in the media. What we can see and read from that is only a small slice of their whole personality or temperament.

So, let’s leave all that to the side for now, and look at what we do know and can know.

It seems that this has happened to us before with Hollis going out for 4 games in 2006 with the asthma medicine situation, and we are now again facing a scenario in which we will be missing contributing starters/players for a significant amount of time in the second half of the 2008 season. It is both disappointing and troubling and it puts the possibility of salvaging a successful 2008 season from this mess in much doubt at this point.

Whether this is a sign the Payton has lost control of this team, or a sign that he is a risk-taking ruthless competitor willing to do ANYTHING to gain an advantage, I do not know.

What I do know is that with our last head coach, we enjoyed a great first season and had much hope for continued success. What Haslett gave us was a team with great potential, it seemed, for either terrible or awesome games, and we never knew which it would be on any given Sunday. But in the end (throwing out the 10-6 w/1st playoff win high of his first year and the 3-13 low of the Katrina fiasco season, just like the olympic judges do), we were exactly a .500 team (7-9, 9-7, 8-8, 8-8) under his direction.

Is Payton heading down the same road? I sure as hell hope not, but only time will tell.

All I can do is watch and follow the team, and cheer cheer cheer for victory, hoping for some kind of continued improvement or sustained consistent good players/results, while understanding that it may not be what this team or coach can do or be. And if it’s not what this team is or can be, we get to start over again each Sunday and each season, so HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.

Keep the faith and don’t give up, Saints FANS. Who Dat!!!!

These guys have been in the league long enough to know that they shouldn’t put anything in their body they aren’t absolutely sure about. For Christ’s sake, they saw Hollis Thomas get suspended last year for medication he was taking for his asthma. If they were trying to lose weight, it’s easy, PUT DOWN THE FORK!!!! God knows they get enough exercise to burn off the weight.

If the season wasn’t already over with, when, not if, these guys get suspended it definitely will be. There just isn’t enough depth on the roster to replace the amount of talent being lost. The only bright spot is that they all just recently signed new contracts or extensions and will all be back next year. As for this year, stick a fork in us WE"RE DONE!!!!!!!!!

I believe Deuce is a standup guy, but we’ll never know what his intentions were. But—they definitely will be suspended. Intentions good or bad. The league can’t let them get away with it. Its negligence if they didn’t know and didn’t clear it with a league doctor. I’m hurt by it but it is what it is. It’ll be great if we could get a wild card spot and then enter playoffs with everyone back and healthy. I’m going to stay wishful!

All I can say is wow. I’ve been unplugged for the past week and just seeing this. All I can say is wow. The Saints make it so hard for me to maintain the integrity of my true personality. I’m a loud shit talking cat who loves to drink, smoke cook and cuss. And damn if the Saints don’t fu*k that up er’ damn year. Oh well, like I always end up saying….just wait till next year we going to the superbowl.
Geaux Saints