Steroids. That tempered my "fandom" for Merriman and that is the first word that comes to mind when someone mentions his name.
Whenever I think about what could've been for him, I just find myself hating Jeff Fisher and his dirty tactics a little bit more. That dirty hit that he alledgedly called for ruined Shawne's career, he was never the same again. I know people will say that was the juice that made him ordinary again, but after that knee injury he could never stay on the field long enough to find out.
They all Juice don't kid yourself, some just never get caught. Seau comes to mind, dude was several different people all rolled up into one.
Merriman might be the only player in history to have his career ruined in retaliation for a cheap shot that was not a cheap shot. F*ck Mawae and F*ck Fisher.
Pretty much. Merriman was on supplements while he was at Maryland - as have been a great number of NFL players - he just finally got caught with the nandrolone-laden product. I loved the guy and frankly I never gave a crap that he was on PED's ("juicing" is a misnomer, I have serious doubts he ever injected anything) because of the prevalence of PED's in pro sports on so many levels. But he ultimately slit his own professional throat. The guy bought a little too much into his own hype as a pseudo-celebrity. He wanted that "fat contract," but you can even see nowadays when he's been a backup on a small market team of late and still tweets and throws himself out there like he's on par with D-Ware. The injury against the Titans was a catalyst, but Shawne's own stupidity/stubbornness in wanting to get that big pay-day, and trying to play through the injury versus getting surgery (when he should have known full well if he'd used PED's in the past that absent continued use, they'll actually cause the body to have a harder time recovering from severe injuries), and then accumulating an even worse injury because he played injured. He quite literally put a gun to the head of his career and pulled the trigger. Shawne has no one to blame but Shawne. And we can blame Shawne... and David Chau.
It's no big deal to me what these guys do in order to become the best they can be. I'm not on the inside so I can't say for sure but I have known college players that would use the needle if necessary. You are right, Shawne is his own worst enemy and using enhancers wasn't his problem, his mouth and self importance brought him down.
Jeff Fisher took a direct shot at Merrimans knee and it was very obvious. That whole thing was based on Merriman running into Vince Young and Fisher just lost it. I hold him responsible for what happened to Shawne all for a crappy QB. I have so much hate for Jeff Fisher and I really hope I can express that to Fisher when the Rams visit us in SD
That stupid Lights Out dance was what wore on me even before the steroids. Got tired of it real quick, and got more tired of opposing teams mocking us with it.
He had also passed 21 tests prior to the failure (in 2 years) and all after. Throw in that the failure was 6+ months before the season starts, and this play didn't start dropping until 2 years later when he blew out his knee. Given these facts, it is completely illogical to think he was simply a product of roids. And if people just assume that he was using a masking agent the whole time, why doesn't that same speculation get put on ALL other players? Maybe they are all doing it and he was just stupid enough to forget to use it once. But that doesn't mean all other players aren't doing the same thing. I am in no way defending roid usage or Merriman, I just find the double standard that people place on him compared to others, utterly ridiculous
Merriman had problems even before the hit he took from the Titans. He also was advised to have the surgery done during the off season and elected not to. In all honesty, I highly doubt the hit is what shortened his career, dude just thought he was bigger than life. End of story.
