A.P. looking into Cushing's 2009 Rookie of the Year award
Posted by Michael David Smith on May 10, 2010 1:18 PM ET
The news that Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance in September has the Associated Press reconsidering the Defensive Rookie of the Year award that Cushing received after the season.

Asked via e-mail whether Cushing's positive test could change his status as the Associated Press Rookie of the Year, the A.P.'s Barry Wilner said, "We are looking into it." But Wilner added that any decision would involve talking it over with several people, and there's no timetable for making a decision on the matter.

As I see it, there are four possibilities:

1. The A.P. could allow Cushing to keep the award.

2. The A.P. could strip Cushing of the award and announce that no one will be named 2009 Defensive Rookie of the Year.

3. The A.P. could strip Cushing of the award and announce that Bills safety Jairus Byrd, who came in second, is the 2009 Defensive Rookie of the Year.

4. The A.P. could have its panel of 50 media members vote again for 2009 Defensive Rookie of the Year.

There seems to be growing momentum for Byrd to receive the award. The Bills' official web site has a post up today noting that Peter King of Sports Illustrated has supported giving the award to Byrd, and Byrd's teammate Donte Whitner is already on the record as saying Cushing should be stripped of the award.

On the other hand, a re-vote might be a fairer way of handling it. Cushing got 39 of 50 votes, while Byrd finished second with six votes, Clay Matthews had three votes and Brian Orakpo got two votes. We don't know how the 39 voters who picked Cushing would have voted if they had known Cushing had failed a drug test, but it's entirely possible that most of them would have voted for Matthews, Orakpo or someone else, rather than Byrd.

It's also possible that the majority of the voters would have picked Cushing even if they had known he had failed a drug test. If the A.P. has a re-vote, it's not clear whether they'd allow Cushing to remain on the ballot.

Ultimately, there is no easy solution. The NFL waited until after the season to decide on Cushing's appeal, and now the A.P. is going to wait a little longer before deciding what to do about a Rookie of the Year award that some of its voters no longer believe he deserves.

"PFTalk" wrote:

They should vote again and give it to the real USC player that deserves it.

"Zero2Cool" wrote:

Merriman finished third in the balloting for 2006 Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year, behind Jason Taylor and Champ Bailey, after having tested positive for using steroids which is against the league's drug abuse policy.

Here it is: Brian Cushing tested positive for slightly elevated levels of hCG (a non-steroidal substance produced naturally by the body).

More hCG: it is in seminal fluid and slightly elevated levels can be discovered in the event that a test occurs soon after ejaculation.

"Adam Schefter" wrote:

Although neither Brian Cushing nor anyone associated with the NFL has said what, exactly, Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing took to trigger a positive performance-enhancing drug test, a new report says he tested positive for Human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG.

That's the same substance that got Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers suspended for 50 games of the 2009 Major League Baseball season.

Adam Schefter of ESPN tweets that Cushing tested positive for elevated levels of hCG. According to Wikipedia, hCG is commonly used during and after steroid cycles to maintain and restore testicular size as well as normal testosterone production.

Schefter also tweeted that hCG is in seminal fluid, and slightly elevated levels can be discovered in the event that a test occurs soon after ejaculation.

So perhaps that will be Cushing's spin: He had recently ejaculated at the time he was asked for a urine sample, and that's why he came up positive. But the bottom line is simple: The league has decided that elevated levels of hCG are enough to constitute evidence of cheating, and the union has agreed. So Cushing's elevated levels of hCG were a violation of league rules, and he'll have to serve a four-game suspension because he violated those rules.