The Associated Press decided to hold a re-vote for its Defensive Rookie of the Year award after the announcement of a positive test for a banned substance in regard to Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing. Public assumption said that Cushing would be stripped of the award and the second place finisher from the first tally, Buffalo Bills safety Jarius Byrd, would likely haul in the hardware instead. In a bit of a surprise, the voters reconvened and still named Cushing the recipient of the award which needless to say has caused a bit of controversy around the sports media world.

What does this re-vote actually tell the public about the media at-large and their perception of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)? Among the fifty votes cast, the original count was 39 of those cast for Cushing, 6 for Byrd, another 3 for Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews III, and the remaining 2 for Washington Redskins pass rusher Brian Orakpo. In the re-mix version, Matthews took down only 18 votes, but the remainder of the votes were split up among the other candidates. Byrd received 13, Matthews 12, Orakpo 3, and the final dissenter went to St. Louis Rams linebacker James Laurinaitis.

After reviewing the in-depth look at this recount, the question that has to be asked is whether or not the 18 votes that were still cast in favor of Cushing were out of pure apathy or perhaps genuine acceptance that drug usage is a part of modern athletics. The media has been hard on high profile sports figures caught using PEDs in the past, but this type of re-vote was their chance to finally say that this will not be tolerated and used for notoriety. With the votes still proclaiming Cushing as the award winner, this really suggests that the media really doesn’t care all that much about the means used to get to the prize.

As a fan, it is a bit disconcerting to see an award stripped from a player because he is now a known user of PEDs and then still given the same award even after the positive test is made public knowledge. In a way, doesn’t this almost condone the usage of banned substances to get ahead of the other players in one’s sport? There are a number of questionable elements to this entire scenario from Cushing’s emphatic denial of “ingesting or injecting” anything into his system. It’s also funny how he left himself a semantic out by not simply saying never “used” or “took”. It doesn’t take long to become a cynic in today’s world of pro sports where athletes are caught lying or cheating on a day-to-day basis, but something tells me that this story is far from over.

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