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Golden Tate was suspended for four games for violating the NFL's policy on performance-enhancing substances. Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

Suspension of Giants WR Golden Tate underscores rigidity of NFL PED rules

By Michael Tunison | Last updated 7/29/19

That the New York Giants are a looming disaster in 2019 comes as a shock to few, though perhaps not many anticipated that things would bottom out so fast.

The story of this coming season, as far as the Giants' passing game was concerned, was supposed to be the transition from Eli Manning to first- round pick Daniel Jones as starting quarterback. Now, thanks to a pre-preseason spate of injuries and suspensions, less-than-ideal conditions could forestall that development.

The Giants' wideouts have been going down like flies. Corey Coleman suffered a torn ACL in practice and is done for 2019. Sterling Shepard broke his thumb and is likely to miss all preseason, if not the start of the regular season. Now the starter opposite Shepard, Golden Tate, has been suspended for the first four regular-season games.

Tate was New York’s biggest off-season acquisition, and was the receiver signed to replace Odell Beckham. Now, through at least September, the Giants' offense is in disarray, even more so than previously thought.

A neutral observer might shrug, and joke that the Giants were doomed anyway, so all of this is moot. That very well may be true, but there’s still an important aspect to this. There’s not much to be said for the injuries aside from cursing misfortune. But Tate’s suspension offers an instructive case into the NFL’s overly rigid guidelines when it comes to performance-enhancing substances.

My statement. pic.twitter.com/WzP7W4bclB
— Golden Tate (@ShowtimeTate) July 27, 2019

On Saturday, Tate put out a statement on Twitter announcing that he plans to appeal the suspension, and offered an explanation as to why the banned substance was in his system: because he had begun family planning sessions with his wife.

Tate’s is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he tested positive, but NFL does not offer ignorance as an excuse. The onus is entirely put on the player as far as the PED policy is concerned. And Tate’s appeal is probably doomed because the language is so ironclad on these details. The policy dictates that players alone are responsible for what gets into their bodies and violations will not be excused because said player was not aware.

In part, surely this is meant to militate against deception. Perhaps a player could cook up a convincing pretext for taking something and then claim that he didn’t know. Getting a wife on board to claim it was for family planning isn’t beyond the bounds of reason.

But the further you delve into the details of Tate’s case, the less convincing that seems. Sure, he’s 30 years old and might be entering into physical decline in the near future, though the receiver just signed a four-year deal with $22 million guaranteed. If anything, there’s less pressure for him to use performance-enhancing substances than there would be at almost any other point. There should be medical documentation to bear all this out. If not, then it would be perfectly reasonable for the suspension to be enforced.

While the NFL must exercise some caution to avoid subterfuge, it’s a ridiculous to have such a scorched-earth approach. As with many of its other hardline protections against banned substances, it removes players that fans want to see from games for reasons they hardly care about. Meanwhile, the Toradol abuse in the league is well-known, but its use is sanctioned by the league. Fans understand the double standard, and the product is further diminished anyway. At the very least, the league could permit some leniency when circumstances call for it.

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