The NFL today would neither confirm nor deny that seven of the top ten rated picks in the April 28 draft had admitted to not using drugs.  "We would like to emphasize the league respects that statements made by JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Joe Thomas, Adrian Peterson, LaRon Landry, Levi Brown, and Leon Hall during interviews with our teams were made in strict confidence."

"The thing you have to understand", said a veteran scout, "Is these statements cover a specific vulnerable period of time in these young men's lives.  Kids in college sometimes experiment with not doing drugs, but that doesn't mean they won't ever.  Some of these kids went to school in places where it's hard to score, some come from unbroken homes and haven't had the benefit of bad influences in their lives, and frankly some are just pumped up geeks."

The league has become increasingly concerned with it's street cred after a year in which fully 97% of it's players were not charged with criminal offenses.  Newspaper reports about players going back to college to graduate, starting their own businesses, and showing respect for women have sent a chill through front offices.

"I don't want to be an alarmist, but this is the same thing baseball went through in the 1990's.  Teams went from having locker rooms full of greenies and bennies, and a healthy drug subculture, to just an occasional steroid user.  We like to think the NFL is immune from that sort of thing, then you look around the locker room and find copies of Nietzche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' lying around.  It turns my stomach to think that guys like Randy Moss, Michael Vick, and Pacman Jones have to be exposed to that sort of deviant lifestyle."

Speaking off the record, one of the ten admitted "Well my whole thing in life is, I just want freedom. And I thought that investments would give me that freedom. I was wrong, of course, but one day you turn 21 and get your trust fund and think 'I'll try a hedge fund, there's no harm in it and nobody will know.'  Then you wake up one morning slumped over a computer with stacks of stacks of collateralized debt obligations all around you and you're having to hire guys from SEC schools to give your urine sample.  I was living a lie."

It isn't just a recent problem.  "Look, I'm not saying this is true" said one ex-all pro but these kids didn't invent clean living.  The rumor was that one of our receivers borrowed a rental car one of our quarterbacks was driving during training camp and found a Bay City Rollers cassette, a six pack of Yahoo, and an autographed picture of Joyce DeWitt.  I'm not saying it was John Elway, I'm not saying it wasn't."

Ex-rapper, now NFL credibility consultant, Don Whittit cautions teams to look for warning signals in evaluting potential draft choices.  "Look at his social life.  Some of these kids get mixed up in monogamy.  Does he have trouble explaining his whereabouts in Sunday mornings between 11 a.m. and noon?  Sometimes you can find a classmate to follow them around.  It never fails, the hard core guys head straight to class.  It breaks your heart."

Commissioner Roger Goodall, leaving a strip club in Las Vegas in the company of two exotic dancers, said the league is concerned about any behavior that can't be glorified in a Nike commercial. 

"Naturally you're concerned about these kids, but I have to look at the bigger issues.  We pump alot of money into turning NFL sidelines into a family friendly version of Hooters, we've sold our soul to every major beer company in the country, and we think the day will soon come when we can tell the United Way where to put those darn kettles. I cannot.  I will not, rest until I can bring our TV viewers a quality of entertainment that would make Caligula proud.  That's my mission here."

Meanwhile, the seven players and their agents wait for April 28th, knowing their lack of criminal activity could cost them millions of dollars and the chance to be photographed with Goodall wearing an Armani suit and NFL logo cap on Day 1of the draft.  It's a steep price to pay, but one league insiders say is just punishment for a life lived inside the lines instead of snorting them.