Mike Celizic

Three draft prospects told scouts at the NFL combine that they smoked marijuana but have stopped doing so. For some reason, several people found this worthy of being leaked like a Karl Rove e-mail to Pro Football Weekly.

Whatever the reason was, it was the same one that made it worthy of an AP story and prominent play in all the usual places.

Nowhere in the brief AP story does anyone congratulate wide-out Calvin Johnson, defensive end Gaines Adams and defensive tackle Amobi Okoye for their honesty. Instead, we have a discussion of the NFL’s new emphasis on character and speculation about whether this is an example of good character or bad.

To which the only response should be, since when is honesty bad? It only makes you wish that guys would fess up to real issues, like domestic violence, heavy drinking and the use of HGH and steroids. But we can be pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

It is possible that  the three — Johnson could be the top pick overall — were simply pre-empting drug tests that they suspected would show that they had THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in their systems. Unlike most recreational drugs, which are water-soluble and go through the system relatively quickly, marijuana is fat-soluble and shows up in urine tests weeks after exposure.

In that case, it’s better to tell them up front than wait for the lab report.

But even if that’s the case, the players know that the NFL considers marijuana every bit as evil as steroids and they don’t dare get caught with it in their systems once they’re in the league. So it’s probably safe to assume they’ll behave themselves.

And who would you rather have on your team, somebody who admitted to smoking weed or someone who might be using steroids — or someone who got into a fight?

It must be a big deal because people leaked the information, hiding behind a guarantee of anonymity. I don’t know what their motives were, other than to vilify the players for something that shouldn’t even be on the NFL’s testing menu.

These are confidential interviews. There better be a good reason for violating that confidentiality, just as Pro Football Weekly should have a good reason for granting sources anonymity.

I can’t see a good reason here for spilling the beans or granting anonymity.

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