James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers of the Green Bay packers, and free agent Mike Neal, formerly of the Green Bay Packers, have about a week and a half left to talk with league officials regarding the claim.
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“In a letter to the NFL Players Association, Adolpho Birch, the NFL”s senior vice president of labor policy and league affairs, warned the four players will be suspended if they don”t speak to the league by August 25.
A copy of the letter to the NFLPA was obtained and reported by the NFL’s website.
None of that is stopping the league from pursuing the matter, something that Rodgers says the players shoulder blame for because they agreed to a Collective Bargaining Agreement that gives NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell disciplinary powers that have been affirmed by two different appeals courts this year.
The Al Jazeera report does not document any actual transgressions, it’s just an unsupported accusation from a man who has since said everything he said in the film was nonsense.
The league says the players’ union has thwarted seven attempts to interview the veterans named in The Dark Side: The Secret World of Sports Doping. Rome also did ask about the Aaron Rodgers about Matthews and Peppers and the AL-JAZEERA Report Rogers said there’s not enough evidence to proceed in the case.
Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison doesn’t want to face a suspension. The NFL announced last month it has closed its separate probe on Manning, who granted interviews and provided all records sought by league investigators.
For the most part, I agree with Harrison and feel the league is unjustly coming down on him by acting on accusations made by a person who has since recanted everything he said in the documentary.
The NFL has been trying to interview the players for months but to no avail. “But, the truth will come out and everything I said when the allegations came out I still stand by, so I just try to kind of put that in the rearview mirror and focus on the season”. Harrison, Matthews, Neal and Peppers. The league has clearly grown frustrated with the NFLPA, which is probably why the players are now being threatened with a suspension.
Goodell has unilateral ability to determine whether or not a player has performed “conduct detrimental” to the league and can suspend the player as he wishes, with few exceptions (ie: there is already a penalty structure in place that aligns perfectly with what the player is alleged to have done).
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The NFLPA has previously stated that affidavits submitted by the four players in July constituted reasonable cooperation, but the league has since said that wasn’t acceptable. I realize Harrison is doing what his union wants him to do, but what about his teammates and his fans? Most important, you advised that Mr. Neal had again refused to cooperate with our investigation by participating in an interview. It’s the right thing to do … He appeared in all 16 games in each of the past three seasons, starting 28, and has 19 career sacks.
