Washington, DC (My Sportsbook) - The NFL Players Association filed a lawsuit Thursday, challenging the suspensions of five players levied earlier this week for violations of the league's steroids policy.
New Orleans' Charles Grant, Deuce McAllister and Will Smith, and Minnesota's Pat Williams and Kevin Williams were suspended Tuesday for four games and therefore benched for this weekend's games after testing positive for a banned diuretic, Bumetanide, which may serve as a masking agent for steroids.
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Minneapolis, argues the NFL had a duty to warn players or the NFLPA that the product -- StarCaps -- contained the banned substance. The NFLPA claims the league's doctors knew in 2006 that use of StarCaps could cause a player to test positive under the NFL's anti-doping program -- after testing the product on their own.
The lawsuit requested an immediate injunction against the suspensions, letting the five players back on the field for their teams' playoff pushes. Minnesota sits at 7-5 atop the NFC North, while New Orleans, at 6-6, is fighting to stay in the NFC South race.
"We are taking these steps today in hopes of keeping these players on the playing field," Richard Berthelsen, executive director and general counsel of the NFLPA, said in a statement. "We strongly believe that the doctors and the NFL should have told us and the players what they knew about StarCaps, but for some unknown reason they failed to meet that duty."
The lawsuit did not include a sixth player suspended by the league along with the previous five, Houston long snapper Bryan Pittman. The two Minnesota players successfully filed for a temporary restraining order Wednesday to rejoin the Vikings.
Jeff Pash, the NFL's executive vice president of labor and league counsel, noted in his initial rulings that the diuretic had long been a prohibited substance and that the league's policy contains numerous warnings about dietary supplements.
The four-game suspensions would cause the players to miss the remainder of the regular season, though should the Saints, Vikings or Texans make the playoffs, the players are eligible to return to their respective active rosters on December 29.
