The NFL's owners and players have figured out how to divide up their money, and have spent a busy week reconstituting rosters and renewing rivalries. But there is still unfinished business in their labor standoff, and the most important issue remaining could be the question of drug testing. The NFL, whose new collective bargaining agreement is expected to be completed and ratified by Thursday, could begin blood testing for human growth hormone (HGH) as soon as September, according to a person briefed on the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly, making it the first major North American sports league to conduct such testing on its top players with the union's consent. Players had long resisted blood testing under the former union president Gene Upshaw, and negotiators are still determining ways to make the program acceptable to current players. Details to be worked out include how many players will be tested for performance-enhancing drugs and how they would be randomly selected when drug testing resumes. There was no drug testing of any kind conducted during the lockout. But Commissioner Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith, the players union executive director, were said by people briefed on negotiations to have long seen the need for growth hormone testing and to want to cast the NFL as a leader in combating drugs in major sports. They have pointed to the joint actions of Upshaw and the former commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who moved to start the steroid testing program in the late 1980s. “I think both sides have a commitment to being leaders in this area and to having the best possible program and they recognize that having testing for growth hormone is part of having the best program,” Jeff Pash, the NFL's general counsel, said Tuesday. __
