MMQB Review

Here are the five things I think I think about today's offering from Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback:

1. King makes some good points about the NFL's testing program and how the three Carolina players caught with steroid prescriptions show that the program is not working. King points out that these players weren't using any undetectable synthetic steroid - they were using Stanozolol. That's the same stuff Ben Johnson was caught using years and years ago. I thought this was interesting:

One more problem with the system. Most men's bodies produce testosterone and a hormone, epitestosterone, in about equal amounts. The NFL has followed the Olympic standard regarding raised levels of testosterone; if an athlete has testosterone levels six times the level of epitestosterone, it's viewed as a positive test for an excess of the former. Last January, the World Anti-Doping Agency reduced the ratio for a violation to 4:1, and the NFL is attempting to follow suit. The NFLPA likely will agree to the change, but hasn't yet.

I posed this question to Birch: If a player had a doctor who could tell him how much testosterone cream, for example, he could use while still staying within the legal ratio, why wouldn't he do that? Especially if he knew he'd never flunk a steroid test but still get a good kick from the extra testosterone.

"There would always be an inherent risk,'' Birch said. "You'd have to find an unscrupulous lab to measure your testosterone. But if someone calibrates how much to take, and succeeds, then no program would catch that violation.''

I'm starting to wonder how players are ever caught. The more you look into it the more loopholes there seem to be. If a player had a competent doctor and a lab to test before they are tested then it would seem rather easy to cheat. I'm really losing faith in any of the testing programs.

2. Pot calling the kettle black:

One other interesting point: The four Browns linemen I've mentioned played in a total of 44 games for Cleveland last year. They had 132 tackles and 13 sacks in 2004. But if you look at clevelandbrowns.com, you'd never know they suited up for the Browns last fall. On the page with defensive stats for 2004, the exploits of Brown, Warren, Ekuban and Myers have been stricken. Their stat lines don't exist.

I've heard of rewriting history, but that's ridiculous. And very small.

A couple of weeks ago King led off his Monday column with a prediction that Pittsburgh would be facing the Patriots in Foxboro to open the season. When that prediction proved false - SI or King erased the prediction.

3. King pimps Dan Shaughnessey's new book. I wonder if King realizes the disdain in which most Red Sox fans hold Chinless. There's a reason a "Shaughnessey Sucks" chant broke out in St. Louis the night the Red Sox won the World Series.

4. Not for nothing but college football coaches get fired for this:

I'm picking North Carolina, for one reason only: If the Heels win, the dumbest person ever to cash in on a college basketball pool (me) will win the one that I annually throw $20 away on. My secret: Just pick the faves. If you don't know anything, just go with the faves

5. This pretty much means that Ty Law signs with a different team:

I think Ty Law will end up with the Jets.