Former Browns TE Ben Watson suspended 4 games for drug prescribed in brief retirement

Former Cleveland Browns and current New England Patriots tight end Ben Watson has been suspended for 4 games for failing a test for performance enhancing drugs. This isn't the typical failed PED test as Watson completely owns it and his explanation is pretty interesting and warrants some conversation.

Thank you for reading: pic.twitter.com/ELcSJCN3FM
— Benjamin Watson (@BenjaminSWatson) May 26, 2019

Watson is completely owning the fact he took the testosterone is interesting enough on its face. He's not suggesting he was taking something and didn't realize it or anything like that. Watson also isn't taking some illicit performance enhancing drug that isn't legal.

Instead, he retired and moved on with his life. And with that, he went to a doctor to deal with life after football and was prescribed this in order to try to help recover his body from a long career of playing football. Then he decided to come back and play another season, finishing his career where it started, book-ending his career with the Patriots. Under NFL rules, he's cheating, but the question that needs to be asked is should this type of treatment be banned?

This gets into a larger discussion about human growth hormone and other treatments that can help the body recover more quickly. Bigger, faster stronger to the point of every player being too much, effectively being deadly is a legitimate concern, but this brings into question what NFL players should be able to do in terms of recovery.

On one hand, there are players fighting for marijuana as a means of pain management. The other is treatments like this where it could help the recovery process, enabling players to bounce back more quickly from injuries as well as the overall grind of the season.

The issue from either side of the discussion is trying to get away from highly addictive pain meds NFL teams prescribe. And it's one the NFL is just dipping its toe in the water on. They should be all over these types of treatments to figure out what the benefits are as well as the risks involved.

If the NFL is truly invested in player safety, it should be more from the end of actually looking into what's best for players and this is a big one. Both in getting through the career as well as recovery after it's over. The NFL has proven to survive quite a bit, but it loves its stars, so figuring out how best they can take care of their bodies is a worthwhile investment of time, energy and money.

The last thing this brings into the light is a player like Watson is opening up a discussion about what does the path for life after football look like and how best can players live as well as possible after their playing careers are over. This is another area where the NFL and player's association should be invested, so fewer lives end in tragedy as has been far too commonplace in the last decade.