It’s old news that there have been, to say it delicately, a few “mishaps” in the lives of current NFL players that are now –with full light shown upon the subject—being exposed to the gossip-thirsty public.

Now more than ever before, people that were perpetually disinterested in anything even relatively football-related are turning in week-by-week to see press conferences, news highlights, and camera footage surrounding the alleged domestic abuse charges of over 15 families all with husbands, boyfriends, or fiancés in the League.

I believe the media’s coverage of the events have missed a key issue –besides spending way too much time covering the cases when the MLB was in full playoff runs.

I believe that what is leading to all of these domestic abuse cases in the NFL is the extensive use of rehabilitation and performance-enhancing drugs that follow what should be season –or even career—ending injuries, and the competition to be the fastest, biggest and strongest man on the field.

“No, no, Sarah,” you may be saying to yourself. “This can’t possibly be true, many people take steroids to recover from knee surgery and they don’t beat their children.” This may be so.

However, when were those people ever Adrian Peterson? AP had a season-ending knee injury two years ago only to come back for the season of his career and be the number one fantasy-pick the following year. You’re telling me he did that on hot dogs, beer and Advil? I don’t think so.

It seems now-a-days that everyone is publicly against the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but the events that haven taken place in the NFL this year make me suspect to how true these public opinions hold behind the scenes.

If it’s not PED’s or HGH’s or good-ole’ anabolic steroids, there was something other than morphine and Vicodin in Adrian Peterson’s system when he was rehabbing for the 2013 season.

Human Growth Hormones are used to bulk-up and strengthen weakened areas of the body, and though not typically advised, can help a person recover quite nicely from a typical ACL surgery.

But, when used in excess… Well, we all saw what happened to Barry Bonds; a twiggy, little thing when he entered the league, but two-shrinking testicles and 762 home runs later he ranged in weight more closely to hulk-like.

Side effects of HGH’s do not just bring you smaller genitals and shame, but unregulated HGH use can also bring on –as LIVESTRONG points out—an overwhelming amount of pretty terrifying psychological issues, including paranoia, hallucinations and psychosis.

But wait, there’s more! Rapid and frequent HGH use can also cause headaches and depression. Let’s couple that with whatever synthetic testosterone these men are pumping into their bodies, and we get some straight-up rage.

All of these factors combined, we should also probably mention that these men are over 6-feet tall, weigh on the upside of 200 lbs, and can run 100 meters in 11 seconds, and oh yeah, they are paid millions of dollars to tackle men of similar sizes.

I do not want to have to put all of these factors together for you, because I think the puzzle fits pretty well by itself. So, I’m not saying Adrian Peterson was a frequent shooter, but I’m also not saying he probably wasn’t.

If these facts aren’t good enough for you, I urge you to turn to history. Lets look back to the beginning of baseball, where big-time hitters like Babe Ruth could hit homers like it was no big deal. Going through the drug era of the 60s, players began to experiment with different types of drugs, but nobody really cared more or less.

But, moving into the late 80s when the Atlanta Braves were televised nightly, there began to be increasing pressure from the public to play like the great players of old – but, plot twist: many of them couldn’t.

In we go to the 1990s, when Major League Baseball had an influx in HGH and PED use, and as a bi-product, baseball reached a maximum in both ballpark attendance, and television viewership; hitters were hitting bombs left and right, and pitchers could throw 90mph change-ups, but were also getting charged for domestic abuse more frequently than what is expected.

Here is when we introduce the all-infamous Mitchell Report of 2007, investigating and naming all the current players in the MLB who were alleged juicers. What was safer to admit than to fight thus turned into the hard-assed drug policy that the MLB, and its fans have come to know and love. Subsequently, we are back from the realm of god-like baseball, and as a result, ratings have begun to slip.

Now, here we are again at the height of the National Football League’s popularity, and the height of recent domestic abuse scandals, and what is left but a flimsy drug policy frantically attempting to be modified as of Sept. 17.

I end with my final thoughts that, although I am not saying any of this is necessarily true, I think there is too much of a parallel to be drawn for it to be completely false.