Bucs QB Josh Freeman lost his starting job only a month into the 2013 season, and after the club used the 25 year old’s allegedly missing team meetings a pretext for dropping him to 3rd on the Tampa depth chart, there’s speculation head coach Greg Schiano has his meaty paws all over reports Freeman’s use of Adderal has landed him in the NFL’s drug program. “There’s something shameful, despicable really,” protests CBS Sports’ Greg Doyel, “about linking Freeman’s legitimate medication to the loaded phrase ‘drug program’ and then leaking that to a media outlet for the transparent purpose of making Josh Freeman look like the bad guy in his very public feud with Schiano.” If the club’s responsible, Doyel argues this would constitute, “the most damaging indictment yet of a franchise that has crossed the line from pathetic to poisonous.” For his part, Schiano tells the Tampa Tribune’s Irv Kaufman, “I know what I’ve done and I’m 100 percent comfortable with my behavior.’
“Certainly, that’s not what you want to happen at all,’’ Schiano said, referring to the public airing of Freeman’s private medical information. “Alluding to the accusation, I don’t appreciate that, either.
“At the end of the day, it’s not a good thing and you keep moving forward.’’
Hours later, DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, said the union is preparing to launch an investigation into the matter.
“We have a collective bargaining agreement that mandates and protects confidentiality and privacy,’’ Smith said after meeting with Tampa Bay players at the team facility. “If we believe that any member of the team management, or anyone from the league, has deliberately taken steps to thwart that privacy and to breach that confidentiality, this union will take every step, file every grievance and pursue any law to rectify that.
“We are sufficiently concerned about what we’ve heard to begin an investigation. I believe the league has the same interest that we have in trying to determine what happened.”