At some point, the five NFL players who used Star Caps are going to have to pay the piper. The NFL is going to have to enforce their anti-doping policy, as flawed as it may seem. In this day and age of ‘act before react,’ the league is going to have to make an example out of someone.

By having a Minnesota judge extend the injunction on the mandatory four game suspensions, the five players (Kevin and Pat Williams of Minnesota; Charles Grant, Duece McAllister and Will Smith of New Orleans) were able to participate in this past Sunday’s games and next weekend. The next court date is December 22.

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Regardless if these players used Star Caps as a steroid masking agent or not, the banned diuretic substance Bumetanide was still used. The NFL has been projecting a no-nonsense attitude with off-the-field issues, so they will at least have to give the impression of coming down hard on these players. All of this attention – even if the players themselves want to clear their names – cannot be good for a league that has kept the cleaning of their house out of the public eye, unlike Major League Baseball. Perhaps a better way of settling this would have been to cut the suspension to two games, reason being the confusion of Star Caps being on ‘the list’ or not. That way, the league would be giving in some and the players would still have felt that they received somewhat of a pass.

All of these court proceedings have made this a stand-off, and no one will be the winner in that.

It’s going to be a hard sell for big and burly professional football players to convince anyone that they only took a product that is marketed as a weight loss drug for middle-aged women. The model on the company’s home page (www.starcaps.com) brings back memories of Mae West, for Christ’s sake! (No offense, Nikki Haskell)

StarCaps even had to put a disclaimer on their website and “temporarily suspend shipping” due to the lawsuit. Now, I totally understand that these players are just covering their asses by blaming the product, but the fact remains that a diuretic such as this is also used as a masking agent for steroids, more specifically, the banned substance bumetanide.

What may be an important piece of evidence is that Dr. John Lombardo (the Steroid Policy’s Independent Administrator) was aware of StarCaps containing bumetanide back in 2006, but failed to inform NFL players because he did not want to line up their excuse for them if they were caught using a masking agent.

Three players on the New Orleans Saints (Duece McAllister, Will Smith and Charles Grant), two Minnesota Vikings (Kevin Williams, Pat Williams) and one Atlanta Falcon (Grady Jackson) all failed drug screening tests for bumetanide. All but Jackson, who has already served his suspension, can miss four games each if found guilty. They have filed appeals with the league and are awaiting hearings.