Taylor Lewan says that he failed a drug test and faces a 4-game suspension
Lewan breaking the story himself:
Of all Michigan players that could be tagged with this, Lewan is among the least surprising to me. Of course he says he "never knowingly took" whatever substance it was. Absolutely everyone denies. Nobody believes the denial.
That's sports today. This is probably PEDs, which are absolutely everywhere. The reason you get caught is that you made a mistake.
Little bit of perico to help with the fatigue of camp.
curious to hear if he snorted it out of a catfish.
OOOOHHH WHISKIES
Edit: Not "probably" PEDs.
Just a friendly reminder that Taylor Lewan is a douchebag
And sexual predator (if not full on rapist).
I don't really care to call him a douchebag but I certainly cringe with I think of him as an alumni. He takes the stereotypical bro status to new heights. Maybe he is a douche?
You have Frank Clark and just under him lies Taylor Lewan. No reports about TL other than being an absolute douche and a pretty horrible teammate.
These guys make a living by staying healthy and performing at the highest level possible. It's a surprise when they're not on steroids.
I am unsurprised by this news, and I am also unsurprised by the fact that I will be negged for saying this.
Yes I did not knowingly take a mixture of designer PEDs designed specifically for my metabolism and timed specifically to maximize my gym work while leaving my urine and blood clean for the scheduled testing.
I ACCIDENTALLY took a mixture of designer PEDs designed specifically for my metabolism and timed specifically to maximize my gym work while leaving my urine and blood clean for the scheduled testing.
Could happen to anyone if you think about it.
Where is the double upvote button when you need it?
Same drug that the Clemson players got popped for.
They all know. And it doesn't really matter to me
PEDs will invariably be widespread in any sport where there is an advantage to being strong or fast or having more cardiovascular endurance. That is, most sports. The only way they can be prevented is by testing so thoroughly that users have a high probability of getting caught, and punishing so severely that users stand a high probability of losing significant livelihoods compared with not using.
I don't believe any major sport has such a mix of enforcement and penalties. I believe PEDs are widespread almost everywhere there is big money available in sports.
Lewan is easy to pick on, since he's not our favorite Michigan player (he's a part of the family, but families have bad apples that make you shake your head in frustration). But he's not the only one who has seen great success by using, either.
This approach he's taking is right out of the Lance Armstrong playbook, btw.
Let's see if this is a wide spread problem in ALL of sports or not
Baseball - all time record for home runs about to shattered, again, for the third straight year.
Football - players are markedly bigger, faster, stronger than just 10 years ago. Compared to 40 years ago the average NFL player from 1979 looks like a middle schooler today. And I think it's a major reason concussion issues are so more common - players generate a hell of a lot more force on impact due to their size and speed.
Basketball - just look at a picture of the Dream Team from 1992. They are (with the exception of Barkley) skinny as hell. Nowdays players like Lebron who go 6'8" and probably around 270 who can jump to the moon are more common than uncommon.
PEDs are EVERYWHERE and arent going away folks. That's just the way of the world these days.
Have been for decades, too.
The way the NBA and its fans have just looked the other way is preposterous to me. Yeah, PEDs don't make you shoot better and they don't make you taller. But they make you stronger and faster and increase cardio endurance so that you can play harder for more minutes. The NBA has never had a significant PED news cycle. That means that either a bunch of hyper-competitive guys who work unbelievably hard and look for every possible edge, for whom tens of millions of dollars are at stake, are either scrupulously avoiding any whiff of unfair advantage, or the NBA is simply not trying very hard to catch them.
Don't forget soccer, BTW, the largest sport worldwide. Does it involve speed? You bet. Does it involve endurance? Few sports would benefit more. It is known that, at the very least, Spanish soccer stars have been placed (anonymously, by someone caught in the Puerto doping scandal) in doping clinics. A drug that will allow you to perform at a high level for 90 minutes instead of 65? There's a lot of money in that.
BTW, I firmly believe PED use against the law or rules is wrong and won't waver from it. But we are fools if we think it isn't everywhere, and I don't generally root for or against athletes I believe to be using because they're competing against a bunch of guys who are using too. If I believe a team has an unfair systematic program (say, Clemson) I might make an issue of that.
That's a long way of saying to Mgrow: Your city has a team that recently reached an unprecedented level of success, led by an amazing athlete who was capable of things that virtually no one else has been capable of, and I have some serious and reasonable suspicions about that athlete, and that shouldn't significantly take away from a fan's opinion of the player or the team.
The home runs have more to do with the ball than drugs. I am by no means saying that drug use isn't widespread in baseball because I am sure that it is. My father in law is a pitching coach in for a AAA team and to date, the home run total is already higher than last years total. In the international league, for example, total home runs in 2018 - 1,555. 2019 to date is 1,785.
I was told specifically from him that it has everything to do with the ball. He played in the majors in the late 80s and early 90s and he said that drug use was actually higher at that time than it is now in baseball.
Reduced seam height
Yeah, like to summer of McGuire and Sosa, when everyone said it was the balls that were juiced. And pitchers wouldn't use steroids because they would get too bulky. Right.
So you don't think it is possible for them to make a ball that flies further?
The balls are on drugs
This is correct and also why it's impossible (in golf) to compare the long-hitters of today with those from the days of yore.
They really should regulate things so we can have intelligent conversations about modern players vs those from decades past. The way things are now, if we're being honest, nobody really knows.
Plus it's easier to impose standards on the ball and clubs than continue to lengthen courses.
Cheers.
“Everybody’s on steroids”-
Nate Diaz.
MLB's punishment scheme is pretty severe. It's testing on the other hand...
I tend to do more than shake my head at rapey, abuse enabling family members. I’m not telling anyone how to set their Thanksgiving table but I’ll take a hard pass on treating him as “family”.
I've taken it before... Steroids are a lot better.
Probably the most embarrassing prominent Michigan player in my lifetime. Go away
I mean there was a pretty prominent basketball player that did 6 years hard time for swindling his adoptive mother out of a home amongst 14 crimes he was convicted for.
Yeah but he made some pretty good free throws back in '89...
Football
Oh and regardless of what other guys have done, and independent of this particular incident, Taylor Lewan still sucks
Getting downvoted for calling a person who basically was an accessory to rape embarrassing boggles my mind. Take the downvotes with pride, just as I will. All those proud of Lewan, downvote away. The rest of us think it’s a bit gross. Feel free to post your username below if you downvote, why wouldn’t you be proud of your choice?
Not surprised, don't really care either.
We should have known when we saw that he was mixed up in the cycling community...
Joking aside--and Lewan probably no longer deserves to be joked about--it was more fun when the above picture was "cute"; now it seems to be suggestive of someone who can't be troubled enough to take certain aspects of life seriously.
I dunno - is there an "I don't care" middle ground between "cute" and "slacker"?
We can call it random. I think that pic is pretty random. Doesn't elicit strong feelings (positive or negative) from me.
I doubt many folks compete in the nfl without taking things seriously. You could argue using peds is taking things pretty seriously.
While every part of my "smoke -> fire" brain says dbag, I have trouble judging someone I've never met like that. I will say - it's incredible how big these guys are but if I saw him at the local baskin robbins, especially if he were wearing pants (so I couldn't gauge muscle vs fat) I'd probably be like dude needs to go run or bike for a while.
Just a long-winded way of saying I don't know that the weight these pro beasts have to carry in order to be competitive is actually healthy. I mean they have the muscle mass but at the end of the day how much can bones and joints support year after year?
Cheers.
A few years ago I went to a lecture by the guy in charge of drug testing for the Olympic games. He said if you have a good trainer you won't get caught because newer and better PEDs keep coming out that laboratory testing has not yet been developed to detect. Might as well have the "all drug olympics"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdG-iTilWU
Yes. The dopers are always ahead of the testing. There are some things that can help; cycling took the lead in doing regular checks of the blood levels of all athletes to identify "unusual values" that could signal doping. It's not perfect, but when you check for "normal levels" you at least can restrain the worst excesses of doping and make the playing field a bit more level. That might just be the only option.
Many athletes switched from roids to sarms. Who knows what the next evolution will be, we just know there will be a next revolution. Didn’t Lewan get busted for adderall when it was still banned?
I assume most of these guys are taking banned substances. It's unfortunate that Taylor was one of the guys who got caught, but he'll be fine. A four game suspension seems pretty insignificant all things considered.
I hope no one is shocked an NFL player uses drugs to gain a physical advantage for a job that pays millions of dollars ?
Im not.
Its a job, he’s protecting his job. It’s his body if he wants to abuse it let him.
Businesses use every possible angle to gain advantages why can’t a person do the same?
Ahhh...because it’s against the rules maybe? Did I miss some other fundamental element of this?
Are you also shocked by banking fraud? Just because it’s against the rules doesn’t mean it should be shocking.
Water is wet revelation.
Glad we don't have anymore yayhoos like him running amok in our program.
Everyone is cool with it except when a former Michigan player gets popped, got it
THIS particular former Michigan player? Yeah I’ll sleep just fine.
Plausible deniability. He misremembered what was in the cocktail.
But he's a hell of a blocker, right?