Titans play PC with Texans LB Cushing
By Bob McClellan
If there’s any team that should take exception to whatever it is that Texans linebacker Brian Cushing has or hasn’t done it’s the Titans.
Well by now you know Cushing’s accomplishments are at least a little tainted, if not downright cesspool-filthy. He has been suspended by the league without pay for the first four games of the 2010 season for testing positive for a banned substance, HCG, a fertility drug. No one is quite sure who was trying to get him pregnant.
Cushing has confirmed that he tested positive for HCG, but he has denied taking it. It’s the same drug that got Manny Ramirez suspended from Major League Baseball for 50 games last season. Steroid users have been known to take the drug because it helps restart the natural production of testosterone. It also can reduce the side effects of ending a cycle of drugs.
The AP ostensibly was outraged and called for a revote on the ROY award. Cushing won again.
“I know Brian and he’s a good guy,” Titans fullback Ahmard Hall said Thursday after a Titans OTA. “He just did something wrong, and he’s gonna have to pay for it. As far as the award goes he earned it and obviously they felt like he deserved it because they gave it back to him on the second vote. Hopefully he learned from his mistakes.”
Where’s the sense of outrage? Cushing was all over the field against the Titans. And they don’t even get a break on the schedule during his suspension: The Titans and Texans don’t meet for the first time in 2010 until Nov. 28 in Houston.
“I don’t know much about it,” Titans left tackle Michael Roos said. “I saw with the revote he still got it. He’s definitely a great player. I don’t know how much if it all whatever he took helped him. He’s still a great player.”
Maybe we’ll get a better sense of how great Cushing really is or isn’t over the final dozen games of 2010. The Titans will test him twice, and don’t expect them to be as diplomatic as they were on Thursday.
