I really like Femi and he was one of my favorite players from the Denny Green era. However, he needs to take some accountabitity for his for this. All he had to do was call this hotline and this issue would never had happened. It's no ones fault but his own.
"I am going to pursue civil action against the company," he said.
But while threatening to sue, Ayanbadejo also pointed a finger at himself. He said he should have sent a sample to the league for evaluation before using the product. He also said the punishment was too harsh and that the NFL's arbitrators should have more authority to reduce it if a player simply made an honest mistake.
"We're not idiots," said Ayanbadejo, entering his ninth NFL season and first with the Bears. "We can, for the most part, figure out when a guy's being genuine, if his story holds up -- which mine does. When a guy's getting a bad rap, which I think I am. We should give the arbitrator the ability to lessen the sentence when I had clean drug tests November, December, February, March, April and I took the supplement in January."
While the failed test and appeal hung over him, another issue arose on June 5.
The Arizona Cardinals waived him after three seasons -- because of the test result, according Ayanbadejo. The Bears, apparently, had no such reservations and signed him to a one-year deal a week later.
"He was up front right away," coach Lovie Smith said after practice on Thursday night. "He told us what happened, and we took it from there."
The move to Chicago -- where he was born -- reunited the 32-year-old Ayanbadejo with his brother Brendon, a linebacker who was his teammate with the Miami Dolphins in 2003. Brendon Ayanbadejo, who's a year younger, said his brother told him about the failed test around 2 a.m. one morning while they were vacationing in Las Vegas.
"I was really upset," he said. "But we're just glad that it's over with. We're glad that he has an answer and he knows where he stands now. ... We're moving on. We're trying to put it behind us. But all the time leading up until we got the answer from the NFL and fighting the appeal, it was a lot more stressful."
Obafemi Ayanbadejo insisted he's not a cheater.
"My intent was not to do anything wrong," he said. "I did not take a steroid. I would never do anything to embarrass my brother, my family, my kids, my friends, my teammates. It's unfortunate that this is what got me released from Arizona."
Ayanbadejo has 513 yards rushing, 885 receiving and eight touchdowns in his career, but he has specialized in special teams play.
"I do support the rules," he said. "I just have a little problem with the way they were executed. I wish somebody could come in and use reason and say, 'Hey, you know what? There's a difference between anabolic steroids that someone's injecting' and someone taking a supplement like I took."
from SI.com
