Bills' Ogunjobi, Hoecht banned 6 games for PEDs

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane announced on Friday that the team will be without two of their free agent additions -- defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and defensive end Michael Hoecht -- for the first six games of the season due to testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

Beane shared the update during a news conference on Friday afternoon. The positive tests violate the NFL's policy against PEDs.

"It's not ideal to have two guys with that, but both guys have never had any issues off the field," Beane said. "It's a tough lesson of where do you get your supplements or whatever happened."

Both players will be able to stay with the team through the offseason program and training camp and then can return to the building after four weeks and play after six. Beane said they are treating the suspensions like they already know a couple players will be injured during training camp and must start the season on injured reserve. He also said that "if they were guys that this had happened before, we probably would have avoided them."

Objunobi, most recently with the Pittsburgh Steelers, only found about his positive test right about the time he was finishing the terms of his one-year deal with the Bills and that the team was not aware before they did so.

"I understand the league, we have an obligation to understand what we put in our body, and I take full responsibility for that, Ogunjobi said on Friday. "... I take full accountability. It was a mistake. It was an accident. And I accept my punishment. Sometimes you don't know what it is. And this is one of those cases. But I think the best thing was to just be honest. ... The organization handled it masterfully. They welcomed with open arms. They understood the situation. They've treated me with nothing but open arms and class."

Beane made it clear that they would not have chosen to sign two players facing six-game suspensions if they had known about Obunjobi's positive test before agreeing to terms. He noted once they found out, many defensive tackles had signed elsewhere, like if a free agent they had agreed to terms with changed their mind days later.

The general manager said that Ogunjobi came into his office on Thursday and discussed the matter with him. The news delayed his signing from Thursday to Friday. Beane said the development caused there to be new contractual elements that the team needed to work through before signing him.

"I give [Obunjobi] credit cause it's early in the process," Beane said. "The league doesn't even know about [the positive test], the way that it's done by an independent group. But he was very forthright. Larry, he was Pittsburgh's [Walter Payton] Man of the Year. He's a good man. He's played eight years in the league and never had a blip and so, that's obviously frustrating for him and a little bit of a setback for us, but we've talked it through, we're in a good spot, but that's part of the delay [in his signing]."

When the general manager called the league about Obunjobi's positive test, he said that the NFL was unaware of it as there is more than one sample taken during tests, as the second sample results come back three weeks later than the first, and until both are tested the NFL is not made aware

The team was aware of Hoecht's suspension in advance of agreeing to terms with him. Hoecht, who was brought in on a three-year deal, found out he had tested positive three weeks into the offseason for "some form of testosterone in my system," so was able to give interested teams in free agency advance notice on what he was facing going into the 2025 season.

Hoecht, who spent the last four seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, said he built a relationship and trust with a trainer of a few years, which led him to stop being vigilant in checking that everything he was consuming was as displayed. He said that he would like to be a voice for other NFL and younger athletes to learn from.

"It was a mistake," Hoecht said. "It was careless. It's fully my responsibility. And it's something I'm gonna have to own, something I'm gonna come up on the better side of and use it as motivation and as fuel."