NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that Dr....

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that Dr. Forest Tennant’s major failing as the league’s drug adviser was “Forest Tennant and the way he presented himself.”

But Tagliabue, speaking to an Associated Press Sports Editors meeting in New York, generally defended the league’s first drug adviser, who resigned in March.

“I still don’t think there were major problems in the way the program was administered,” he said.

Tennant said he resigned because of his private practice, but his administration of the NFL’s program has been criticized for sloppiness and other deficiencies, most recently during a report by a Washington television station during Super Bowl week. He has since been replaced by two men--Dr. John A. Lombardo for steroids and Dr. Lawrence S. Brown Jr. for general substance abuse.