Collaros takes off-field hit Suspended one game for failing to respond to drug-testing notification; forces league to re-examine policy By: Jeff Hamilton Posted: 12:45 PM CDT Wednesday, May. 7, 2025 Last Modified: 9:52 AM CDT Thursday, May. 8, 2025 Updates

Zach Collaros has a knack for navigating sticky situations. Widely considered one of the top quarterbacks in CFL history, the Blue Bombers’ signal caller has built his career on an ability to evade pressure.

However, nothing in Collaros’ career could have prepared him for the situation he has faced in recent months. All because of a missed phone call.

On Wednesday, the CFL suspended the Bombers star for one game for failing to respond to Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) officials seeking an off-season drug test. As a result, Collaros will miss the Bombers’ first game of the season: a Week 2 matchup against the visiting B.C. Lions on June 12.

Visibly emotional during an interview with the Free Press this week, Collaros detailed the exhaustingly frustrating past several weeks that resulted in his decision to forgo an appeal, despite strongly asserting his innocence, and the league ultimately agreeing to change its off-season drug-testing notification policy.

The bottom line for the 36-year-old Ohio native was standing up for his rights.

“Talking to my dad about it, and some other people I care about a lot, I’ve always done things the right way and I wouldn’t want young people to think that I don’t,” he said.

“It’s hard for me to talk about, honestly, I just want to move on with it. It’s been an everyday thing for me the last two months.”

“I’ve always done things the right way and I wouldn’t want young people to think that I don’t.”–Zach Collaros

The chain of events that led to the CFL suspending the two-time Most Outstanding Player began Feb. 4 when a CCES official first attempted to contact Collaros to arrange a date for an off-season drug test.

The CFL/CFLPA’s negotiated drug policy stipulates a CCES official must attempt to contact a player twice by phone, once by text message and once by email within a two-hour window. Despite being tested throughout his 14-year CFL career, Collaros has never tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.

Collaros can easily recall the Feb. 4 date, as it coincided with both the first day of CFL free agency and Super Bowl week.

He remembers being on his phone at times, including with former teammate Kenny Lawler, who was still trying to work out an extension with the Bombers. Throughout the week, he also received calls from news outlets eager for his two cents on his close friend, Travis Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kelce, his former college roommate at the University of Cincinnati, was preparing to play in his third consecutive Super Bowl and is currently dating global music superstar Taylor Swift.

“I had told the team I didn’t want to do anymore of those interviews,” Collaros said. “I don’t want to be asked about his girlfriend. That’s none of my business.”

Voicemail unlistened; email, texts unread

Collaros does not recall receiving a phone call from a CCES official; it appeared on his phone as an unknown number. In fact, he said it wasn’t until a week later, during a conversation with a representative with the players’ association, that he learned someone attempted to contact him.

The CFLPA inquired about Collaros’ activities that day but throughout the questioning there was no mention of a possible suspension, nor was Collaros informed he was already under investigation for his inaction.

The representative requested Collaros check his phone, where he discovered the missed call, a voicemail he had not listened to and the CCES email.

In regard to the email, Collaros had an easy explanation: he never checks it. Within the Bombers organization, there’s a long-standing joke that if someone wants Collaros to see an email, you must call him first.

As proof, he pulled out his phone during the Free Press interview, revealing 89 unread text messages and more than 55,000 unread emails.

All the messages from CCES were identical: “Dear Zach. My name is (redacted) and I am the Sports Services Co-ordinator at the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. I am contacting you with regards to the CFL/CFLPA Drug Testing Policy. Could you please call me back as soon as possible at (redacted)? I have tried calling and emailing you at the phone number and email provided to the CCES by your team.”

Despite the two calls from the CFLPA inquiring about his actions and whereabouts, Collaros gave it little thought until a month later when he received another call from the union alerting him to an email informing him of a two-game suspension, the standard penalty for a first-time offender who either tests positive for a banned substance or refuses to provide a sample.

Upon learning his impending punishment, the gravity of the situation began to sink in for the three-time Grey Cup champion.

His first move was to request an extension, which gives a player 10 additional days to explore their options.

More stringent drug-testing a CFL priority

Collaros directly contacted the CFLPA executive to gain a clearer understanding and to express his confusion regarding the league’s off-season testing protocols, adding he was unfamiliar with the punishment.

Collaros recounted he was told “something along the lines of they really want to start tightening down on things like this in the off-season.”

“I asked what that was supposed to mean?” Collaros said. “They didn’t know, but that somebody in the league office really wants this one.”

The league had made more stringent drug testing a priority after going through the entire 2015 season without a program. The league, in partnership with CCES, now administers enough tests to cover 100 per cent of its players, though some may be selected multiple times while others aren’t tested at all. Former Bomber running back Andrew Harris was suspended two games in 2019 for testing positive for a banned substance.

Collaros then contacted Bombers team president and CEO Wade Miller and spoke with his agent, Dan Vertlieb. Vertlieb’s father, Art, a prominent lawyer in B.C. with a long history with the players’ association, also lent his expertise.

It was during this stretch that it became apparent the language regarding off-season testing is somewhat ambiguous, notably lacking any explicit penalty for failing to respond.

Collaros sheepishly admits that while he understands what substances are prohibited, he pays little attention to the training camp seminars that annually address the issue. However, Collaros acknowledges ignorance is not a defence.

“I hate that I’m making excuses, and at the end of the day, it’s on me to follow the rules,” he said. “We do know that there’s off-season testing, but I can honestly tell you — and maybe other people feel differently — I never thought there were any consequences if you miss a phone call.”

And while also not an excuse, Collaros pointed out he has three kids under the age of five — a challenging situation for any parent — and he and his wife Nicole maintain a strict no-phone policy around their children.

After consulting with legal counsel and union officials, they could find no grounds for a successful appeal. Collaros’ argument would not be that he abstains from performance-enhancing drugs; rather, he would need to identify a clause in the bylaws that would exempt him from responding to a CCES official.

That proved a tough pill to swallow.

“It pisses me off because I don’t just want to lay down to these people,” Collaros said, a lump again forming in his throat. “I can’t help but get emotional when talking about this, but I had always been above board in this sport, in any sport.

“I love sports. I work my ass off. We all sacrifice a lot of time and effort in the off-season, during the season, to be in shape, to be at our best. I don’t want someone to think I did it the wrong way and that’s what really made me want to fight it.”

New communication protocols to be introduced

Meanwhile, the CFL head office was examining Collaros’ concerns regarding what he perceived as inadequate communication channels. Collaros had cited other professional sports leagues, such as Major League Baseball, where more safeguards are in place to protect players, including additional points of contact with either the team or the player’s immediate family members.

Collaros believes he would not be facing this ordeal had these precautions been implemented. He noted that a single call to the Bombers would have sufficed to get his attention.

The CFL agreed, offering Collaros a one-game suspension instead of two. However, that came with a caveat: Collaros would forfeit his right to appeal the one-game penalty, and any attempt to do so would result in the offer being withdrawn.

The CFL and CFLPA have since agreed to introduce new communication protocols for off-season testing going forward.

“I think that says we’ve known this guy for long enough, we don’t believe he was evading or using anything,” said Collaros, whose offer to take a subsequent test was turned down. “However, we have a policy, so we’ve got to follow through with this.”

“At the same time, if the policy is flawed and that’s why they’re going to change it, why do they have to suspend me?” asked Collaros. “Take my one or two game cheques as punishment, but let me play.”

As Canada’s national anti-doping organization, the CCES is an independent body overseeing ethical conduct and fair play in Canadian sport. Guided by the global standards of the World Anti- Doping Agency (WADA), the CCES develops and enforces the Canadian Anti-Doping Program for all federally funded sport organizations and their participants.

The Free Press reached out to the CCES in an effort to better understand best practices for testing players with advance notice.

Kevin Bean, executive director, sport integrity for CCES, wouldn’t speak to the CFL’s drug testing policy, as CCES only acts as a facilitator between the league and the WADA-accredited lab it uses. He did say, however, that a critical element of the CCES’s work is implementing no-advance notice doping controls.

“Advance-notice testing is not something that’s utilized under the WADA system and the Canadian anti-doping program,” Bean said in a phone interview, noting there are rare exceptions. “The athlete would not know until we showed up at the door that they’re selected for doping control, they’re going to be required to provide a sample. We do that, primarily, to make sure that the athlete has no opportunity to perhaps manipulate the sample they’re going to provide.”

In other words, there are no best practices for advance-notice testing because it’s not something that’s even considered, let alone recommended as a trusted approach by the CCES or any other top anti-doping organizations. So, the CFL’s 24-hour rule is unique to its own policy, with zero input from CCES, as they don’t have jurisdiction over the league.

For a player who has absorbed crushing hits on the field, the next ones will be among the hardest to take — dealing with the rumours, innuendo and social media chatter that will question his reputation.

However, after a career of playing before hostile fans, he’s confident he’ll be able to tune it out.

“The people that I care about know what I’m about. That was kind of my first inclination, when we were debating on the one game, I don’t care what these people think, I want to do what’s right for the organization, for the team, for my teammates,” Collaros said.

“Pushing this down the road for a 20 per cent chance of winning (an appeal), 10 per cent chance of winning and then maybe getting suspended and it becoming a circus in Week 8 or 10.

“I just thought it would be better to handle this one day at training camp, and missing the first game will suck, but then we’re just playing football and we can talk about other stuff.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca