Richard Sherman and fellow Seahawks defensive back Brandon Browner faced four-game suspensions after testing positive for PEDs last month. Both players initially planned to appeal their suspensions, but Browner decided to drop his appeal and sit out Seattle’s final four regular-season games. Sherman is proceeding with his appeal, and he reportedly has a very interesting defense for his positive test.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Sherman is arguing in his appeal case that one of his urine specimen containers was contaminated while being collected. But that’s not the interesting part of the argument.
Sherman reportedly argued that the container used for his specimen was leaking, and that the urine collector used a second container to capture the leakage. Sherman reportedly says the seal on the second cup was broken, which would break the chain of custody for collection.
If the urine specimen collector confirms this tale of events, then Sherman would be grounds for Sherman to escape suspension.
The chain of custody for the specimen collection being broken doesn’t necessarily mean Sherman did not use Adderrall, it just would mean that the testing process was invalid. If this sort of defense sounds familiar, it’s because former NL MVP Ryan Braun used a similar excuse to avoid a suspension in his PED case.
Hey, the good news is at least Sherman won’t be using the lame excuse we previously had heard.
