Most of you probably don’t care about football, and I know a lot of you actively disapprove of the sport. I like it. I am a big New York Giants fan. I am a fan of the team and a fan of the organization, which is one of the best in all of sports. The Giants have a player named Will Hill who has just been suspended for the third time for using banned substances. The first time it was for using Adderall. The last two times it has been for smoking pot. Will Hill is a very talented player. He comes from a troubled background. His sins may seem minor. He suffers from anxiety and he takes drugs (prescription and otherwise) to deal with his anxiety.
The Giants took a chance on Hill when they signed him as an undrafted free agent. After his second suspension, they told him that there would be no third chances. Ed Valentine, who is the dean of online Giants fans and a man I deeply respect, makes a very convincing case that the Giants need to part ways with Hill. I think he’s right, but not necessarily for the reasons that Valentine lays out.
For Valentine, this is primarily a football decision. The problem with Will Hill isn’t that he’s some massive dope head. The problem is that he can’t follow the rules, keeps getting suspended, and the team can’t rely on him. Valentine has other beefs, but this is the central one, and it’s very compelling. No matter how good Hill is at his job, he can’t do his job if he isn’t allowed on the field.
But this isn’t the reason that the Giants should part ways with Will Hill. The reason they should cut him is because he probably needs to suffer consequences if he’s going to change his behavior. In other words, the Giants shouldn’t cut him because that is the best decision for the Giants, but because it is the best decision for Will Hill.
And here’s the second part. They should not only agree to pay for any treatment or psychiatric attention he wants or needs, they should tell him very clearly that he’ll have the opportunity to compete for a roster spot if he’s willing to demonstrate that he’s staying clean over a sustained period of time.
Will Hill may be a flawed person, but we all are flawed. He’s not a bad person. He has an emotional makeup that is vulnerable enough that he isn’t able to control his use of substances even when it should be clear that using those substances will be bad for him and bad for his teammates and bad for his employers. I wouldn’t call him an addict, but he exhibits the same kind of irrational behaviors that an addict displays.
Football is a business, but the Giants are a family. The Giants can’t sacrifice the team’s success to indulge a player who keeps letting them down. He’s only suspended for six games out of a sixteen game season, so it’s possible that some other team, even a rival, will snap Will Hill up and put him on the field and make the Giants regret that they let him go. But those teams would be enablers.
The NFL needs to review its policies about pot-smoking and Adderall. But Valentine is right that even if the policies are wrong, Hill’s inability to abide by them shows a lack of control and dependability.
As to the Giants, if they want to live up to their reputation, they won’t toss Hill aside, but they’ll cut him. For his own good. Football teams can’t put family before performance, but they should never lose sight of the humanity of their players.
So he’s self-medicating his anxiety with marijuana, and that shows he’s dependent on the substance and should be cut loose? Bullocks. I’m sure he’d be doing soooo much better with Xanax or Valium…
Kind of off base, seabe. He’s been suspended and missed games three years in a row. That’s a major problem.
I don’t watch football so do you mean he’s missed games from his suspensions, or has missed games because he was AWOL?
If the former, well, not sure what to say about that except the league’s rules are ridiculous and stupid. They’re going to change them soon anyway, they have to. It’s becoming a major problem with drafting, and the country’s attitudes are moving fast. From what I can see, this guy’s point is that regardless of the rules, “rules are rules,” which I and his readers think is a dumb position to take.
If the latter, he should have been gone long before now.
My point is that they should cut him because he’ll keep relapsing if they keep enabling him. If the rules were more sensible, maybe this wouldn’t even be an issue, but the rules exist. If Will Hill wants to be a professional football player, he can’t continue to fail drug tests.
Great !
I’d find this a lot more sensible if we were talking about opioids or other harder substances, but we’re talking about marijuana (I don’t know what the rap on Adderall is on the addiction scale but I’ve heard of it and similar drugs being used for performance enhancement), which is already legal for sale (in a very limited market, to be sure) without a prescription. Who, other than Eric Roberts, goes to rehab for their pot problem?
This sounds much more like an issue of conscience and personal choice than addiction. I agree with Seabe, it’s a dumb rule. The NFL shouldn’t even be concerning themselves with pot.
You have to consider the context.
You might not disapprove of pot-smoking but if your father kept losing his job and leaving you hungry because he couldn’t stop failing drug tests, you’d have a problem with him.
If Will Hill wants to be a dependable NFL player, he needs to stop smoking pot. If he needs help with that, he should get that help.
The core context is the anxiety. Is he being treated for anxiety disorder by a professional and is he receiving prescription medication for that?
If his anxiety has been diagnosed by a medical professional, then it seems that the Americans with Disabilities Act is probably pertinent. We, as a society, can’t keep saying that we need to get serious about mental health and then look at a situation like this and not see it as a mental health issue. He hasn’t hurt anyone and his biggest crime is that he’s ill (i.e weak) in a “man’s” game.
Also if Hill has a anxiety disorder or related diagnosis and IS taking prescription drugs for it, this situation seems to be indicating that those drugs may not be effective for him. And frankly then, if the marijuana helps him, this context is a different situation than someone just smoking weed for recreational use.
A agree with Seabe as well.
On the other hand, if he’d been using HGH, no problem. In fact that would show he’s a serious team player.
The NFL, our perfect non-denominational religion. Our country may be slowly devolving into a neo-feudalistic hellscape, but we can always talk about roster spots and OTAs amIright?
The circus is a very important part of the bread and circuses we’re provided for being good Americans.
IF Hill has anxiety disorder or some other legitimate diagnosis AND the prescribed medication is not effective for him then THAT is the core context here. His use of marijuana may be based on an urge to self-medicate.
And his difficulty in following inflexible and arbitrary rules of the NFL is secondary. That’s a symptom manifesting in problems with his workplace.
From a purely team perspective there are plenty of available players who are better simply because they are more likely to be available for 16 games. From a business/football perspective that part is easy.
As for Will there are plenty of jobs he can take that don’t require drug testing. He won’t starve and he can support his family. He just won’t likely be a millionaire.
As for Will’s well being, there is not a lot of evidence that pot is chemically compelling him to keep using it. There is a good body of evidence that pot smoking in the teen years changes brain development for the worse. And with or without pot way too many people never learn to be comfortable in their own skin, manage impulses, fit in with others, etc. Those might seem trivial unless you are feeling these feelings without knowing a way out. And they are feelings that most drug and alcohol users say they felt before they started using. Either way it is a lifetime of misery.
On these two counts, Will might have issues. As fellow human beings with the potential for more influence on Will than most others, I would encourage the Giants to show compassion for him as a human being and help him find help to be a better, more serene person.
As for why the nfl tests for pot I don’t know. It is not performance enhancing and does not pose a workplace safety issue. If they get busted for possession then they can be cut for that just like any other crime.
HGH, steroids, etc., are workplace safety issues because it can cause players to take them for fear of losing their job. And it hurts the on game product in the eyes of fans. Pot? Not so much.
The trouble with all this is that the collective bargaining agreement requires that the drug he tested positive for be kept confidential. Because of this, each and every player in the NFL immediately says it was Adderall. You have no reason at all to think that’s accurate. On top of that, if you legitimately need Adderall, you can get a waiver for it. Thirdly, Adderall, is speed. It’s not a harmless drug like pot. The NFL probably should revise their policy on pot, but it isn’t necessary for Adderall, since they already will grant a waiver for it. If it’s needed. If it isn’t needed, then the player is just doing speed for reasons.
Hill has been waived.
If only Hill was smart enough to use AcmeTM drugs for his anxiety, instead of a plant derivative, we’d be discussing something else entirely.
Hill should lose his job for not taking AcmeTM brand drugs. What a loser!