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Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw (who is still, you know, not dead) clarified on Tuesday his recent remarks regarding steroid use during his career.
“I’m not bodybuilding here,” Bradshaw told the New York Daily News. “They were not those kind of steroids. They were anti-inflammatories.”
Bradshaw claims he took corticosteroids, an anti-inflammatory that is not a prohibited substance under NFL rules. He says he did not take anabolic steroids.
Fine, but let’s not lose sight of the realities of the era in which Bradshaw played. Using anabolic steroids wasn’t against the rules in the 1970s. Anabolic steroids weren’t even illegal then. The federal law that targets these compounds didn’t come into existence until 1990.
And though we hardly consider ourselves to be experts regarding the differences between the potential benefits of corticosteroids and anabolic steroids, Bradshaw’s initial reference on The Dan Patrick Show to the healing powers of the steroids Bradshaw took immediately reminded us of Mike Golic’s steroid use admission.
Let’s also not lose sight of Bradshaw’s initial remark: “We did steroids to get away the aches and the speed of healing.”
“We did steroids.”
The Daily News gives our pal Dan Patrick (shameless plug alert – I’ll be on his show at 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday, at which time I’ll talk about my use of Claritin and Pepto-Bismol) a backhanded slap for not immediately requesting clarification from Bradshaw.
Um . . . “We did steroids.”
What clarification is needed?
“We did steroids.”
The only possible thing Patrick could have said at the time was, “Terry, are you saying that you and your teammates did steroids?” But, then again, we already had the answer.
“We did steroids.”
If Bradshaw was only referring to the still-permissible use of corticosteroids, is there any reason to say, “We did steroids”?
And so Bradshaw’s clarification will be accepted by the media, and we’ll all move forward pretending not to realize how rampant the use of anabolic steroids was in the NFL during the 1970s and 1980s, and how rampant is still might be today.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported in July 2006 that 18 former Steelers from the 1970s and 1980s had died since 2000.
“We did steroids.”
June 25th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Valiant effort to turn what should be a relative non-issue into something much bigger, Florio. Guess you’re trying to fill the massive void left behind from Spygate?
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 14 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Chances are, everyone reading this post has done a cortisone based steroid at least once in their life. These are everywhere and they are called “steroids”. They are used to reduce inflammation. They are commonly given to people with allergies (seasonal, insect stings, poison ivy, etc.), people with asthma, and people with injuries that cause swelling. A cortisone shot is the most direct form of this type of drug.
But these are not anabolic steroids - in fact, they do the opposite - instead of building muscle, they actually work to tear it down especially from the extremities and chest (if used over very long periods). Most athletes, Bradshaw included, probably do not know the differences between these and anabolics.
To him, he got (correctly) “steroids” to help him heal. I doubt that the guy ever thought much about the difference between the types of steroids.
So cut the guy some slack - not everyone was doing anabolics back then. Further, back then, people who did do them didn’t cycle them, etc. They just took them randomly at best which greatly diminished any positive effects. This is the reason that guys then didn’t look like the juicers of today.
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June 25th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Steelers****
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June 25th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Interestingly “16 of the 77 NFL players from the 1970s and 1980s who have died since 2000 were Steelers - more than one in five.”
Hmmmm…
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 8 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Dr Richard A. Rydze. Steelers doctor. Bought $150,000 of testosterone and HGH in 2006. Steroids - it’s the Steelers way
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Rating: 2.85 / 5 with 13 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Did Steve Courson die from STEROIDS? No.
Mike Webster? No.
Terry Long? No.
Dwight White? No.
Are the Steelers from the 70’s getting older? Yes.
Get serious, what a bunch of Mike Mularkey.
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Rating: 3.1 / 5 with 13 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Why would there be an asterisk next to a dynasty for something that wasn’t banned?
The only asterisk talk for spygate comes because beeeelichick literally broke the rules and cheated.
EVERYONE at the time had the same access to steroids and could have/did use them without any consequence from the league. So why somebody doing something that wasn’t illegal is big news is just baffling to me.
Literally everyone at the time had the same “competitive advantage” that he did, so this isn’t anything to get upset about really.
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Rating: 3.75 / 5 with 13 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Interesting…I guess Steeler fans will defend Terry and they should! They weren’t illegal. I’m sure the Steeler’s wasn’t the only team that was doing steroids. Here’s the thing though, thier are fans that will be on here crying tainted! The Steel Curtian was the Steroid Curtian type non-sense.
As a Pats fan, with the ugliness of “spygate,” you will now have to hear it from “the Fans from other teams!” Weather it’s fair or not, it will happen!
Personally, it doesn’t matter to me. Most of the players from that era where on steroids, so the playing field was probably level. The thing that made them so good was, they had the best players. They just happened to be on steroids!
Don’t start with the *** crap, it’s ludacris!
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Rating: 3.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson once said, “Terry Bradshaw couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the ‘C’ and the ‘A.’”
If you think for a second that Terry Bradshaw even knows there’s a difference between a cortico-steroid and an anabolic steroid (prior to his publicist slapping him in the back of the head and screaming at him to get in front of a mic and talk about anti-inflamatories), you’ve got a screw loose.
Bottom line - Terry shot of his mouth again and really didn’t know what he was saying. When he spoke to Patrick, I guarantee he believed he did “illegal” steroids, whether he did or not (leaving aside the entire point that they were completely legal at the time).
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Rating: 4.4 / 5 with 9 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Monger’s got a Steelers crush. He’ll post 2 or 3 times per Steelers story. See you next Steelers post Monger!
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June 25th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Dynasties don’t use steroids.
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June 25th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Well Florio it is a low media period so now Dan Patrick
becomes the story. There are hundreds of corticosteroids
on the market that athletes take. I have taken them as an
amatuer tennis player in his 50’s looking to recover from
injury for a tournament. People have to realize that the
recovery time is 75% faster than any other treatment. Most
of these type of steroids are legal and if not they soon will
be. Professional sports unions should be educating on the
difference between corticosteroids and anabolic steroids.
Many corticosteroids are used for only one week and do not
enhance performance.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:58 am
“We did steriods.”
Way to take things out of context. Even when explaining, you again and again refer to the above statement.
Way to remain impartial.
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June 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I use corticosteroids from time to time to reduce flare-ups of Ulcerative Colitis which is very similiar to Crohn’s Disease…both being Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD).
David Garrad has Crohn’s Disease and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had to take some corticos from time to time. The drug is used to surpress inflammation and reduce immune system response. I don’t really see much of a problem with athelets using them.
When I tell people I use the drug they all respond, “lifting weights?”. The word steriod has a bad connotation with it and regardless of what the drug does - people always see it the same way.
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June 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Jeez, Florio is giving me douche-chills with this entry. Can you please include the line “we did steroids” one more time in an effort to use semantics to hammer in a non issue? For a guy who alludes to the fact that he’s not part of the mainstream media (and apparently is very proud of that) he sure does love to try to use the same types of sensationalism (and a little bit of damage control) to get his awful point across. Yes, we get it. He used the phrase “we did steroids”, it may or may not mean something. Please do 10-12 more entries on this when it goes nowhere to try to revive it to avoid looking like a fool.
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June 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Florio pastes Man-Girl for not further probing Meatball’s admission, but wants to give his boy Patrick a pass?
You see, TiViFlorio, if Patrick would have pressed the subject, we wouldn’t have to sit here and wonder if Bradshaw was being honest then, or now with his explanation. The situation is similar to the Imus fiasco. If he would have clarified his point, you wouldn’t need to ponder the honesty of the later clarification.
I know you’re not unaware of these simple concepts. Your double standard appears to be fueled by your desire to get on radio and TV.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
June 25th, 2008 at 10:13 am
We now know one thing for sure. Steroids don’t make you smart.
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June 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
@brentech
Absolutely agree. Steriods does have a negative connotation to it. In fact, I would have to believe that many people reading this have taken a type of steriod perscribed to them by a doctor. Especially if one has ever been to a dermatologist.
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June 25th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Claiming to take steriods to heal faster is like claiming you read Playboy for the articles. Just shut up Terry.
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June 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
At the very least, steroids would explain Terry’s baldness issues.
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June 25th, 2008 at 11:56 am
to all you steeler haters, just over the fact that we are great and you are not.
pls, you are just embarrassing yourself at this point.
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June 25th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Every human on the planet uses steroids. Estrogen and testosterone are steroids. Just not the same as ANABOLIC steroids.
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June 25th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
” We did steroids” several times in the same article is right up there with ” we are stupid” journalism.
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June 25th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Has no one noticed how Bradshaw said he wanted to “get away… the speed of healing”?
A verbal misstep that normally would be enshrouded in hilarity, how come no one’s laughing? It’s like a funeral in here.
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June 25th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
What the Steelers did at the time wasn’t against the rules, where as the Patriots*** blatently broke the rules.
There is a big difference.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)