Over the past five years, the NFL has seen such a big boost in popularity that if it played in any other country, the Bush administration would have invaded twice by now. This peak has been achieved by the endless efforts and talents of mythic-sized athletes, the relative ease in reaching peaceful labor agreements and, as is unfortunately seen increasingly in the major American sports, steroids.

In the past, players like Bill Romanowski, a linebacker for 17 years in the NFL, have revealed in retirement that they used steroids, which for some reason never prompted questioning of the NFL substance testing program.

In all fairness, the NFL is not the only sports organization in which this has been seen. The late Ken Caminiti, a former third baseman who played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball, admitted steroid use back in 2001, and it took the actions of Congress, four years ex post facto, for baseball to do anything about its endless drug problems.

But like Mark McGwire, I’m not here to talk about the past. When the Chargers’ linebacker Shawne Merriman was suspended for steroid use, it wasn’t just his transgression that I took offense with. My major issue with the Merriman debacle was that the NFL actually needed the public disapprovals of players Jason Taylor and Champ Bailey to point out that awarding Merriman Defensive Player of the Year and allowing him to take part in the Pro Bowl may not send the correct message on steroids and how the league plans to deal with the issue.

The NFL’s punishment for Merriman was just as disgraceful, suspending him for only four weeks. This would be identical to the University expelling you only for four weeks and letting you contend for any academic excellence awards if you turned in a plagiarized paper to Turnitin.com.

But we are talking about a sport which has done nothing to address the fact that the Cincinnati Bengals having been picking up more arrests than wins over the past two seasons, or the fact that the Bears’ Tank Johnson had to ask a judge to forget about his house arrest so he could take part in Super Bowl XLI. Don’t you miss the good old days, when it was only the Raiders fans who had to worry about whether or not the entire team would get locked up between game days?

In the last two years, MLB has had its steroid situation blown up in the media, even though a complete resolution has yet to be found, and the NBA has imposed dress codes for players to try and rid the sport of its thug image. But while all this happened, the NFL had more stars imprisoned than both MLB and the NBA combined. I have argued many times that football has overtaken baseball as America’s favorite pastime, but unless the NFL begins to take the correct strides in tackling its steroid issue, that popularity amongst the fans will decline as quickly as it rose. Anytime a league can get a full game going that is comprised of players arrested or suspended over a 10-month span, something needs to be addressed.