Editor’s note: Each week during the NFL season, former Bears defensive lineman Alex Brown shares his football wisdom with RedEye. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
The Bears (2-7) play at the N.Y. Giants (6-3) this week at noon Sunday on Fox.
Alshon Jeffery, the Bears’ best receiver and one of their best players overall, this week was suspended four games for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
The league randomly tests players’ blood and urine throughout the year.
Alex Brown played nine years in the NFL, including eight with the Bears. He was never suspended for drug violations himself, but he has strong takes on how those situations are handled and what it means when players fail those tests.
On what players can do to avoid banned substances, and how the NFL treats failed drug tests.
You want to get anything looked at [by the NFL] to make sure that it’s OK. I sent in something and what I got back was that “this looks fine to us, but remember, you’re responsible for whatever you put in your body.” I think that’s the dumbest thing in the world, honestly. Because it’s good or it’s not, you tell me. I’m asking you, I’m going through the things that I need to do to make sure that I’m not breaking the rules, but then if I take something you told me looks good [and is not], then you’re going to come back and suspend me for four games?
I’m not saying that’s what happened in Alshon’s case. All I’m saying is that’s what I’ve experienced and I think that is awful. That’s an awful way to do something when we’re talking about a player’s reputation. We’re talking about taking quite a bit of money from a player when [the league] completely take themselves out of responsibility for it, and I have a problem with that.
On who should bear responsibility in certain cases.
If a player knows they’re trying to cheat and they get busted, OK, fine. But if a player’s not [trying to cheat] and honestly does not know because the labels say this and nothing on the label gave him that red flag, then that should fall on the company because it’s misleading and the players don’t know that.
If you’re gonna cheat, then you’re gonna cheat to get better. Some of this stuff that you’re popping guys with, that’s not what you’d use if you wanted to cheat. But because this [substance] is on that list, everything on that list gives fans and people outside the NFL that notion of “he’s a cheater.”
On substances that are more accessible to NFL players than they are to the public, and how players recover from injuries.
I think it blows people’s minds what we actually go through to be able to play. You get a shot in the butt before the game because my back is hurting. You come back at halftime and you get another one because I’m trying to get through this game feeling like I’m in one piece, understanding that probably on Monday I’m going to feel like I’m broken in half because I’m going to worry about Monday when it gets here. That’s the mentality. [Brian Urlacher took] Toradol, you take painkillers, anything that relieves the pain, then you take a lot of anti-inflammatories. You go through your whole treatment program, make sure you’re icing and all that stuff. But then you gotta practice too. It’s tough, man.
I wouldn’t tell anybody not to [play in the NFL]. This isn’t for everybody. But the people that have done it, regardless of what situation they’re in now, I highly doubt that anyone would say, “I wouldn’t do it all over again.” I know I wouldn’t [say that]. At [age] 37 I feel fine, but I don’t know where I’m going to be at 57. We’ll see.
On whether Jeffery’s suspension will affect whether the Bears re-sign him.
I think it’s going to come down to price anyway. He wants $14 million a year or $40 million guaranteed, and I think that [suspension] hurts that number. But for me, I wasn’t on board with paying that much in the first place. Is he a good receiver? Yes. But there are a lot of things that he can’t do that I’d like for my No. 1 receiver to do. Nobody’s afraid of his speed, so they sit on his routes. So if you sit on his routes, the only way he’s going to beat you is if he jumps over you, and I don’t like those odds when I’m talking about my No. 1 receiver. I need that explosion, and if he can show me that, great. But we’re paying him $14 million this year, and he has [only] one touchdown. You’re one of the stars, you’re one of the captains. He has to be better.
Finish this sentence: The Bears can beat the Giants this Sunday if …
… Eli Manning misses the flight. You’re not going to stop [receiver] Odell Beckham. The only way is if Eli Manning is not throwing to him. There’s no tricking Eli. Not to mention [receiver] Sterling Shepard is really, really good. Whoever draws that card [on the Bears defense] is going to have their hands full.
I know everybody’s going to talk about how the Giants can’t run the football, but the Giants ran the football last week when they needed to, and that’s harder than running it during the rest of the game.
Catch Alex Brown before and after every Bears game exclusively on Comcast SportsNet Chicago’s “Bears Pregame Live” and “Bears Postgame Live.”
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