League wants HGH testing in new labor deal

Human Growth Hormone, friend of baseball players and preferred performance enhancer of choice for athletes doping, has a big target on its back in the next labor deal between the NFL and its players. Whenever that labor might happen. Commissioner Roger Goodell has been on the public speaking circuit lately, making it quite clear that testing for HGH has to be included in the new way forward. 

HGH is already banned by the NFL. However, it's a tricky thing to test for, and the league does not test players for HGH in their already strict drug testing. 

Major League Baseball will be watching the NFL's jihad against HGH. Though it's banned in that sport as well, testing has been the main issue with enforcement. If a professional sport like the NFL can implement testing, it's sure to follow in other sports as well. 

As far as how this might impact the labor deal and whatever state of disrepair the two sides are in, I can't imagine it would be a big hurdle. The NFLPA has agreed to the strictest drug testing policy in pro sports already, though hardly a flawless one. Money is the biggest issue in this fight. If they can get a resolution on revenue sharing, the rest will fall into line without much effort. 

Talking up HGH testing right now isn't a bad little PR maneuver either. If protestations get too loud from the players, it could box them in and further damage their image in the eyes of fans. Individual comments made by players on the record right now could taint the whole the lot. For the most part, players haven't gone rouge with comments about the lockout, etc. The NFLPA deserves some credit for maintaing pretty tight message discipline. The best thing to do with the HGH issue, from their perspective, would be to ignore it. Work on the big picture of the agreement first, i.e. the money.