Bob Kravitz

bob.kravitz@indystar.com

Jim Irsay put Ryan Grigson and the Indianapolis Colts in an impossible position.

Here was the looming question after Irsay's arrest a few months back: How would the team deal with a player who tested positive for party drugs or was arrested for possession of those same drugs?

Now, Exhibit A, LaVon Brazill.

How do you welcome back Irsay with open arms, surround him with support and love and good feelings, and reduce Brazill to some moron who just doesn't have the self-control to lay off the weed?

Double standard anybody?

The league has suspended Brazill at least a year for testing positive once again, and while we don't have full confirmation, it's fair to assume it's once again for marijuana. He's tested positive multiple times for it before this latest misstep, and was semi-open about it when we talked to him last training camp about his issues.

Of course, he wasn't completely truthful during that interview, saying he only tried it a couple of times (sure) and it was out of it life now and forever (not so much). Please, the guy's a pot-head. If you're constantly testing positive for the same drug, you're not trying it a few times. You're a regular user.

But here's where it gets dicey.

Irsay has been addicted to alcohol and drugs for long stretches of his life, but when he was arrested in the spring, the community (and myself) gathered around him and largely supported him. We said he was a sick man. We said he needed to go to rehab. We said he was an otherwise fine, big-hearted man who had many of the same demons that diminished his father. Get well, Jim, we said.

Now comes Brazill, and here's the response. He's a moron. He's a knucklehead. He's a dummy. Cut him. Cut him now. (I wonder what the response would have been if he was something other than a marginal player who would have had to fight for a spot on the 53-man roster?)

I realize we're only talking about marijuana, which, while it isn't as deeply addictive as opiates can engender a certain level of dependency. But it seems to me Brazill, too, needs professional help. And you wonder if the Colts will act the same toward Brazill, who clearly needs some kind of counseling as he moves forward in his life and what's left of his fledgling career.

This is where it gets tough, and weird, for Grigson. Because if he pooch-kicks Brazill out of the organization, it looks like the Colts are engaging in a double standard.

I don't know what's going on in Brazill's life, but it seems to me that if you have the choice of a half million dollars or getting high, and you consistently choose getting high, you clearly have a problem that requires professional help. As he said last year, given the choice of money or marijuana, we'd all choose money first. And yet, knowing that, Brazill chose marijuana. That's not just insanity, that's the kind of act that screams out for professional counseling.

They stood behind Irsay.

They stood behind Robert Mathis.

Will they stand behind Brazill?

Or will they cut him the moment the time is appropriate?

I'd like to see them extend the same level of support to Brazill that they did the others. I understand it's just marijuana, a drug that is only a performance-enhancer if you're into competitive eating. I understand it's just marijuana, a drug most of us have used at some point in our lives, a drug that is now legal or de-criminalized in other states.

But a person who continually tests positive while throwing away their career has a problem that goes behind being an irresponsible knucklehead. This is not a choice a healthy person makes, not with $570,000 and a career on the line.

All of that said, let's move to the larger subject here, the larger question:

Why does the NFL, and other leagues, test for the stuff?

The NFL doesn't test for HgH, clearly a performance enhancer, but guys are getting suspended left and right for lighting up.

Alcohol and tobacco are, by my understanding, far more destructive than marijuana. There's been a sea-change in this country where you can go to a dispensary in Colorado, talk to your "budtender,'' and legally walk out of the joint (get it?) with your favorite form of weed. Even Bill Polian, who isn't exactly Doctor Sensemilla, noted a few years back that he has taken a far less negative view of player who use marijuana. Once, a positive test for weed was a non-starter and engendered a giant red X on the draft board. Now, it's no big deal.

It seems to me the league (with the cooperation of the NFL Players Association) should agree to test for HgH and quit testing for marijuana.

Times have changed. Time for the NFL and other pro leagues to change, too. And listen, if the bud helps athletes deal with the physical and emotional ravages that are visited upon them by the game, what's the problem with allowing it?

Now, none of this changes the equation regarding Brazill. He knew the rules, even if they're out-dated and wrong-headed. If you tell me I've got to stay clean to become or remain employed, I'll do it without a second thought. Brazill screwed up. Again.

Clearly, though, this guy has some issues, and I'd like the Colts to help him through those issues – even if he's a player who was a marginal roster player, at best.

If you're going to embrace Irsay, you've got to embrace Brazill, regardless of the drugs of choice.

Bob Kravitz is a columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Call him at (317) 444-6643 or email bob.kravitz@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BKravitz.