Mekhi Becton calls failed drug test a “one-time mistake”

[Broadway Joe]

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Former Louisville tackle Mekhi Becton landed just outside the top 10, becoming the newest member of the New York Jets. It’s unclear whether he ended up being taken behind two other tackles due in part to a failed drug test at the Scouting Combine. Regardless, it happened, the teams knew about it, and Becton (because the rest of us knew about it, thanks to a report from the NFL’s own media outlet) had to address it last night after he was picked.

“It was just a messed-up drug test, you know,” Becton told reporters, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. “I made a mistake, a young mistake that won’t happen again. It was a one-time mistake that’s never going to happen again.”

Becton said he was worried about the failed drug test initially, but that he eventually realized it was no big deal, as long as he was honest about it.

“The more I got honest with teams that asked about it, the more I felt better about it,” Becton said. “They were just telling me, ‘Just be honest about it. Don’t try to lie.’ It was better for me to be honest about the whole situation.”

The downside of a failed drug test isn’t what is used to be. Under the new labor deal, there will be no suspensions for positive drug tests under the substance-abuse policy. Still, failing a test that the player knows is coming provides a red flag, requiring teams to figure out why he wasn’t clean in time for a test that hardly was random.