The NFL knows that enhanced athletes are better for businsss and provide a better more exciting product to watch. Also every game is such a grind that without some sort of exogenous help the best players just wouldn’t heal and wouldn’t be on the field as much and nobody would watch. The drop off in quality from starting QB to backup for example is like falling off a cliff and would hurt the game.
We seen this with allegations against Ray Lewis in the playoffs before he won the super bowl to heal from that elbow injury... was accused of using deer antler or some shit. Same with Peyton Manning whose wife was receiving HGH from her doctor; he also was recovering from an injury leading up to the super bowl win that led to his retirement. Of course he league turned a blind eye to allow one of the greatest ever to walk into the sunset with a ring.
There is drug testing obviously, but there are ways around it. Other drug use that most people don’t know about but is very real is cocaine use. They don’t test for cocaine throughout the season.
So I think it’s gear in the off-season, HGH for basically everybody during the season (they don’t test for that at the moment but soon are going to), and cocaine for some players who benefit from that either physically, mentally, or to numb nagging injuries. Wouldn’t you do it if your next contract is on the line and you could make millions and need to be on the field? Let alone that’s there’s always someone waiting in the wings to take your spot forever. The avg. nfl career is 3 years.