Cowboys' La'el Collins denies claim he attempted to bribe NFL drug tester

Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman La’el Collins is back from his five-game suspension this week, and he has no regrets about how it was handled.

Collins was suspended under the NFL’s drug policy based on a number of missed tests. The punishment was harsher based on an allegation that he had attempted to bribe a drug tester.

On Friday, Collins admitted he had “missed a few tests here and there,” but felt the punishment was harsh because he never failed one. He also strongly disputed the claim that he’d tried to bribe the drug tester and seemed to claim that it had originally started as a joke between him and his teammates.

“All I will say about that is I have no reason to bribe a drug collector. Never have, never will,” Collins said, via Todd Archer of ESPN. “It was nothing like that. It started off as a joke among a few guys and went the wrong way. Like I said, there was nothing in my system that would have led me to try to get out of testing. I knew I was getting tested randomly. I was being tested a lot, 10-plus times a month sometimes. There was no way getting around that and still isn’t. It is what it is.”

Collins was so adamant about his innocence that he unsuccessfully went to court to try to get the suspension tossed. If the bribe allegation was a joke, it apparently became a pretty believable one if the league was willing to use it as evidence for the suspension.