Manley Might Be Banned Permanently From NFL

Defensive end Dexter Manley of the Washington Redskins faces lifetime banishment from the National Football League under terms of the league’s drug-testing policy. According to team sources, Manley’s test for cocaine turned up positive Thursday, his third positive test.

Manley was excused from practice, and Friday met for 90 minutes with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, whose office said a decision on Manley’s future in the league will be announced today.

Redskin sources, however, said they expect Manley to be banned for life as a three-time offender. Yesterday, the team signed lineman Mike Stensrud.

“I feel bad,” defensive lineman Charles Mann said. “Evidently, this is it. His football career is over. This isn’t the way you want to go out. I feel extremely bad for him.”

According to the league drug policy instituted in 1986, a player who tests positive a third time is banned, although he can apply for reinstatement after a year.

“There’s no precedent for any deviation (from the policy),” a league spokesman said.

Coach Joe Gibbs said Manley’s problem was “substance abuse related.” The league announced only that Tagliabue discussed “matters” with Manley and his agent, Bob Woolf.

Two players, Tony Collins of the Indianapolis Colts and Stanley Wilson of the Cincinnati Bengals, were banned last year after testing positive a third time for drug use.

Manley, 31, tested positive for cocaine a second time in July, 1988, when he was suspended for 30 days of training camp. Although it wasn’t announced when he tested positive the first time, his cocaine problem was revealed when he entered a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in Center City, Minn., in March, 1987. According to team sources, the club got the results of his third positive test Thursday, when Manley was notified.

Manley is the second Washington player to test positive for cocaine use in two weeks. Cornerback Barry Wilburn tested positive a second time Nov. 3 and was put on the non-football illness list.

Gibbs said he didn’t think the Redskins have a major drug problem.

Although Manley declined to comment about the meeting with Tagliabue, Woolf said: “I found the commissioner to be very concerned about Dexter. He was very fair. The commissioner was very, very sympathetic. I think everybody is sympathetic to Dexter Manley, and I think it’s because he’s been such a positive influence. He’s done so many things.”

Redskin owner Jack Kent Cooke said he doesn’t know why players take drugs.

“I don’t understand why these men do these things,” Cooke said. “We have the good Lord endowing them with unusual talents, talent that is withheld from mere mortals like you and me, and they desecrate this talent by doing these absolutely stupid things, taking drugs. Not only do they desecrate their talents, but think of what they do to their exchequers. These men are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It’s completely beyond me why they do it.”