Montez Sweat Hit With Two-Game Suspension Over 'Unintentional' Banned Substance

The classic "I accidentally took a banned substance" defense has officially returned to Chicago.

Bears defensive end Montez Sweat is serving a two-game suspension for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing substances policy. According to ESPN's Adam Schefter and Courtney Cronin, Sweat claims the ingestion was completely unintentional and called the resulting ban devastating.

"Sweat stated the ingestion was unintentional and called the suspension 'devastating.'"

Every time a player gets popped for PEDs, the statement is exactly the same. Nobody ever comes out and says they were trying to get huge in a secret underground lab. It is always a tainted supplement, a mysterious protein shake, or an over-the-counter cold medicine that somehow contained the exact chemical compound needed to trigger a failed test.

The Bears are coming off a 30-24 win over the New England Patriots, but losing your premier pass rusher for two weeks is a massive blow to a defense trying to hold the line. When you take a guy like Sweat out of the trenches, the math changes for opposing offenses. That is the kind of absence that shifts the over/under on how much time a rival quarterback has to sit in the pocket and read the field.

Unfortunately for Sweat, the NFL does not care about intent when it comes to the substance policy. The league operates on strict liability. If it is in your system, you are sitting down and losing game checks, whether you bought it at a sketchy gas station or a high-end nutrition store.

Chicago will now have to figure out how to generate pressure without their star edge rusher for the next couple of matchups. Sweat will be back after his two-game timeout, but until then, the Bears defense is going to have to get creative to fill a massive void on the defensive line.