Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long took to Instagram over the weekend to say he was retiring from the NFL.
The player also revealed this week on radio that he used marijuana while playing football.
“I certainly enjoyed my fair share on a regular basis throughout my career,” Long said in a call-in appearance on the Dan Patrick Show. “I was never afraid to say that, but I’m able to say it more explicitly now.”
“We should be headed to a place where we allow players to enjoy what I would not even call a drug,” he said.
“It’s far less dangerous than guzzling a fifth of alcohol and going out after a game. Chances are the player won’t even make it to the club,” Long added.
According to the former player, players would be far less likely to get in a fight at a club or be charged with a DUI.
“You’re never going to read about him sitting on the couch and binge-watching Game of Thrones. … I think, from a standpoint of what’s safer for the people and the player, certainly people in the spotlight … it is far less harmful than alcohol, it is far less harmful than tobacco.”
Long said his use of marijuana was to help deal less with pain and more with the “stresses of day-to-day NFL life.”
“I think the [drug] testing is arbitrary,” Long said. “The league, speaking plainly, knows damn well what they’re doing.
“Testing players once a year for ‘street drugs’ — which is a terrible classification for marijuana — is kind of silly because you know players know when the test is. We can stop, and you know, in that month or two when you stop you’re going to reach for the sleeping pills, you’re going to reach for the painkillers, you’re going to reach for the bottle a little bit more on the weekend. You’re going to have a few more drinks and a few turns into a few two many and, you know, it’s just not the same.”
“If you’re serious about players not smoking, you’d be testing more often. I hope they go the opposite direction and realize how arbitrary doing that one test a year is.”