Jermichael Finley and other Packers players say they endorse the league’s drug testing efforts. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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Green Bay - Howard Green was on the couch one summer day when he got a call that can occur at any time for any NFL player no matter where he is or what he's doing.

Drug test. As in, surprise!

The Green Bay Packers defensive linemen answered his phone to discover that there was a guy parked in front of his house ready to collect his urine sample.

"Only . . . I didn't have to go," said Green. "So he was just sitting at my house, watching TV with me, just chillin' while I'm drinking water.

"I'm like, man, this is the weirdest thing and he's like, I've got to wait here until you can go."

Drug testing in the NFL has become a little strange, slightly annoying and absolutely essential to maintaining the integrity of the most popular game in America.

And there's a push to make the biggest drug testing program in any sport - with 14,000 tests a year at a cost of $10 million to the NFL - even tougher. That push is coming from the league itself.

As of today, the NFL tests 350 players every week during the season, starting with the first preseason game all the way through to the Super Bowl. Ten randomly chosen players from all 32 NFL teams find a notice in their locker every week that it's their turn.

The current test determines whether the player has illegal drugs in his system, and if he does, he faces a series of consequences resulting in varying degrees of suspensions.

"It's impossible to take steroids in this league for as many times as they test you," said Packers tight end Jermichael Finley. "If you do steroids, you've got to do a cycle every day. You can't do a cycle, then stop, then do it every other day.

"So, it's impossible. There's no way around it. If you've taken steroids or done any of those kinds of things, they're going to see it, I guarantee it."

At least a quarter of all testing is also devoted to the off-season, where players are away from the facility and on their own to train. The NFL can test anyone up to six times in these short months.

But that means Packers players have to notify the NFL of their location no matter where they are. Going to Costa Rica for two weeks?

"They will have a guy in Costa Rica to test you," said Green.

Element of surprise

The NFL keeps the testing unpredictable, so that players can't cheat the system.

"My rookie year I had somebody come to my mom's house in Pensacola (Fla.) and wake me up at like 7 in the morning," said Packers guard Josh Sitton.

Bleary-eyed Sitton was in for a rude wake-up call because the test has to be taken in the presence of the tester from a full frontal view.

Those that conduct the tests - lab technicians, emergency medical technicians or law enforcement officers - work for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, the non-affiliated company hired by the NFL to handle the testing.

If players miss one of these surprise tests, the consequences are pretty harsh.

"I think it counts as a failed test," said Green.

Not automatically. A missed test, for any reason, is reported and then investigated by the NFL.

The league then determines what action to take next, like issuing a warning or being placed in a reasonable cause category, which subjects that individual to as many as 24 tests in a single year. After that, players can worry about fines and suspensions as well.

And yet for all the warnings and awkward inconveniences, players embrace the testing.

"It's a necessary evil to keep a level playing field," said Green Bay fullback John Kuhn.

Finley agrees. He puts in 90 minutes in the weight room: 10 minutes warming up, 20 minutes of core work and the rest "getting buff." He doesn't want to face a linebacker who took shortcuts or benefitted from banned drugs.

"Guys want testing; we want it to be fair," said Sitton. "I don't want to be going against a guy that's 330 pounds that runs a 4.7 because he's on steroids or something."

That's the chief reason for the implementation of testing, said Adolpho Birch, NFL senior vice president of law and labor policy, who oversees the administration of the drug programs.

"With respect to the things that we're able to test for - yes, the program is effective. It does what it is supposed to do. It deters," said Birch. "And when use is detected we take action and that further deters you.

"The problem is, when you have something like HGH - which we are not testing for - no, it does not have that affect. That's why we're so adamant that we need to begin HGH testing immediately."

When the players and the NFL arrived at a new collective bargaining agreement in August, both sides agreed to new testing for HGH. The human growth hormone is found naturally in the body but medicinally prescribed to patients with growth deficiencies.

Testing was supposed to start Week 1, said Greg Aiello, NFL vice president of public relations, but it hasn't happened.

The NFL Players Association released a statement in mid-October saying that "absent a collective agreement on several critical issues, blood collection is not ready to be implemented."

A few of the Packers expressed the concern that HGH testing might compare apples to oranges.

"I accept the blood test and I think everyone else would, too. The real hang up is the baseline," said Kuhn. "How they find the appropriate levels of what HGH is. Are they taking random samples of football-sized men? Or are they taking sample sizes of soccer players and track stars?

"We're naturally going to have more HGH than they are, so we want a fair baseline before we accept something like that."

Kuhn's not alone in expressing this concern. But the NFL overwhelmingly disputes it, citing studies from scientists that vouch for the test's merit.

"The concern that he has reflects a misunderstanding of the science," said Birch. "The test does not look at the level of HGH in your system. It looks at the ratios of different types of HGH in your system. That is something that does not change based on ethnicity, size or even gender.

"It's sort of a flawed view to think, 'We're big football players, therefore our numbers may be different than someone else's.' "

Travis T. Tygart, chief executive officer of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, wants the league to use the test for HGH, saying in a letter that experts "support the scientific validity of the isoform test" for the NFL.

Still some suspicions

But as the HGH testing remains in limbo, suspicions linger around the game that players otherwise state with pride is mostly clean.

"I wouldn't say I hear about it, like this guy does it. But it's definitely talked about," said Sitton.

It's a subtle read, beyond a guy who's fast or playing better.

"Guys I played against, you think about it. He's probably on something," said Green. "You all play the game with intensity . . . emotion, but sometimes . . . there's that much more."

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) urged the league to start testing for HGH, and in his plea he cited former NFL quarterback and television commentator Boomer Esiason for saying that many believe at least 20% of players are using HGH.

"The problem is, without testing, they're all just guesses," said Birch. "That's half the reason we're so adamant to get the testing in place, so we have an effective deterrent that will resolve some of these questions and pat down some of that speculation and guesstimating.

"We don't know. No one can say in the absence of testing."