The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Kevin and Pat Williams can play in the NFL this season as they await a Minnesota State Supreme Court ruling on their banned-substance suspension. The Williams’ tested positive for a banned substance, which turned out to be the supplement sold under the brand name StarCaps. Two New Orleans Saints players were also suspended after taking StarCaps, but they will have to serve out their suspensions this season because Louisiana law failed to protect them in the same way Minnesota laws protected the Williams’. This does not mean the Williams’ suspensions have been lifted, just that they can play until a final ruling can be made, and that ruling just happens to be scheduled after the football season is over.

I know Roger Goodell wants to crack down on banned substance use, but this whole StarCaps fiasco exposed a major flaw in the testing system. It’s not fair to suspend players who went to their trainers with this substance, asked him to test, and then got word back that it was not a violation of the banned substance policy. The league’s stance that “you are accountable for anything you put in your body” is absurd. Someone has to be held responsible for deciding whether an individual product is in violation or not. We can’t have an official testing lab say something is OK, only to find out later that it isn’t and then suspend everyone who took the substance. The fair thing to do here is drop all the StarCap suspensions and just make it clear that from now on StarCaps are banned in the NFL.

Tags: football, kevin williams, minnesota vikings, nfl, pat williams, starcaps, williams wall