Fred Davis’ Guaranteed $$ Is Going Up In Smoke

Or 6 victories a season?

A report surfaced last Sunday that 11 NFL Players had tested positive under the NFL’s drug policy shortly after the lockout ended. To date, only 2 of the players have been publicly identified and they’re both Redskins. ESPN’s Adam Schefter was the first to report that Trent Williams and Fred Davis had tested positive for “recreational drugs”. Recreational drugs do not fall under the same category as performance enhancing drugs…so I’m going to make an educated guess that the drug in question is marijuana. Fred Davis was using his offseason to practice running his puff, puff…pass routes.

Now, here’s what’s disturbing to me, and it’s not that Fred Davis (may have) smoked some weed during the lockout. What’s peculiar is that the story was broke by Mike Shanahan‘s go to guy in the media, Adam Schefter. Shanahan and Shefter have a long relationship that dates back to the 90′s when Schefter covered the Broncos for the Denver Post. Schefter even authored Shanny’s book ‘Think Like A Champion’ and word is when Schefter breaks Redskins news it’s directly from Shanahan. Schefter and Shanny are so tight that they are rumored to vacation together. So, did Shanny sell out his own players? It’s reasonable to believe given the history between Schefter and Shanny and the fact that none of the other 9 players who tested positive have been identified.

What reason would Shanny have to leak this information? Well…Fred Davis will be a free agent after this year and he’s having a breakout season. Fred Davis stands to make a lot of money. Leaking this information puts up a smoke screen (serious pun intended) that could scare off potential suitors. If Davis is enrolled the leagues substance program and is a strike away from being suspended for a period of time teams may shy away from signing him or overpaying for him. My guess is this leak will at the very least cost Davis several million dollars in guaranteed money.

It’s not as if this would be below Shanahan to do. He had no problems airing dirty laundry about Donovan McNabb and Albert Haynesworth. Just last week Shanahan publicly took a shot at Anthony Armstrong stating that if he couldn’t start separating in press coverage it was time for him to start coaching. I’m not sure it’s time for Armstrong to start coaching but I do believe it’s time for Shanahan to start concentrating more on coaching and less on playing mind games with his players and the media.

Cheers and Hail