PA Season Ticket Holder
05-04-2003, 05:30 PM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Julius Peppers was quiet as a rookie. He's even more guarded now that he's back from an NFL suspension that ended his first season four games early.
Advertisement
"I watch everything I do around everybody," Peppers said Friday, as he returned to the practice field for the Carolina Panthers' first minicamp. "I'm a lot more cautious about everything."
Peppers took a dietary supplement given to him by someone he considered a friend. The pill was illegal and Peppers was suspended for the final month of the season. The time was humbling for him. But one thing's sure: he is certain he won't be used again.
"It's not paranoid, I'm careful how I choose my friends," he said. "The people hanging around, I'm always trying to figure out what their motives are, why are they hanging around, I'm watching their moves."
He doesn't want sympathy for his mistake, nor does he want to be viewed as a naive kid who was given too much too soon and later exploited.
Instead, he wants to focus on the upcoming season.
"The suspension was my fault, I did do that -- I took that thing," he emphasized. "But all that's in the past. I'm back for the 2003 season."
Peppers will have more eyes on him than ever before.
He had 12 sacks last season, helping to dramatically improve Carolina's defense. He helped the Panthers go from 1-15 the season before he arrived to 7-9 in 2002; the defense went from an open-door policy to a stingy unit that ranked second in the NFL.
And Peppers wasn't just a pass rusher. He was enough of a presence against the run to help his team rank eighth, while pushing the entire defensive line to raise its level of play.
But he knows that because he was caught taking an illegal supplement, some will view his stellar rookie season as tainted.
"Everybody who knows me, everyone in this organization knows it was nothing like that," he said. "I've been doing this for years, since I was at (North) Carolina. It's all natural."
http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/6349211
Advertisement
"I watch everything I do around everybody," Peppers said Friday, as he returned to the practice field for the Carolina Panthers' first minicamp. "I'm a lot more cautious about everything."
Peppers took a dietary supplement given to him by someone he considered a friend. The pill was illegal and Peppers was suspended for the final month of the season. The time was humbling for him. But one thing's sure: he is certain he won't be used again.
"It's not paranoid, I'm careful how I choose my friends," he said. "The people hanging around, I'm always trying to figure out what their motives are, why are they hanging around, I'm watching their moves."
He doesn't want sympathy for his mistake, nor does he want to be viewed as a naive kid who was given too much too soon and later exploited.
Instead, he wants to focus on the upcoming season.
"The suspension was my fault, I did do that -- I took that thing," he emphasized. "But all that's in the past. I'm back for the 2003 season."
Peppers will have more eyes on him than ever before.
He had 12 sacks last season, helping to dramatically improve Carolina's defense. He helped the Panthers go from 1-15 the season before he arrived to 7-9 in 2002; the defense went from an open-door policy to a stingy unit that ranked second in the NFL.
And Peppers wasn't just a pass rusher. He was enough of a presence against the run to help his team rank eighth, while pushing the entire defensive line to raise its level of play.
But he knows that because he was caught taking an illegal supplement, some will view his stellar rookie season as tainted.
"Everybody who knows me, everyone in this organization knows it was nothing like that," he said. "I've been doing this for years, since I was at (North) Carolina. It's all natural."
http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/6349211