May 22, 2013; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh speaks to the media during organized team activities at the 49ers training complex. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Five, count them, five different Seattle Seahawks players have been suspended since 2011 under head coach Pete Carroll for violating the league’s policy against performance enhancing drugs. The drugs in question tend to be the prescription drug Adderall for ADHD which is labeled as a PED.
And other coaches around the NFL are taking notice, including divisional rival head coach Jim Harbaugh of the San Francisco 49ers.
“I’ve definitely noticed it,” Harbaugh said, via Grant Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. “You don’t know what it is. Even when people say what it is, you don’t know that that’s what it is. I’ve heard this thrown out or that, but that’s usually the agent or the players themselves saying it’s, for example, Adderall. But the NFL doesn’t release what it actually is, so you have no idea. You’re taking somebody at their word that I don’t know if you can take them at their word, understanding the circumstances.”
The debate about whether Adderall deserves to be on the banned substance is a different subject together. But as of right now the league has banned it.
“It has no place in an athlete’s body,” Harbaugh said regarding the NFL’s list of banned substances. “Play by the rules. You want to be above reproach, especially when you’re good, because you don’t want people to come back and say, ‘They’re winning because they’re cheating.’ That’s always going to be a knee-jerk reaction in my experience, since I was a little kid. We want to be a above reproach in everything and do everything by the rules. If you don’t, if you cheat to win then you’ve already lost, according to Bo Schembechler. And Bo Schembechler is about next to the Word of God. It’s not the Word of God, but it’s close.”
This potentially hints at Harbaugh’s attention to what his team is ingesting. But it could also set him up for an embarrassing moment if one of his players gets suspended.
Of course he could just be watching and enjoying his week two opponents being short staffed.