ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane announced Friday that the team will be without two of its free agent additions -- defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and defensive end Michael Hoecht -- for the first six games of the season due to violating the NFL's policy against performance-enhancing drugs.
"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 stay with the team through the offseason program and training camp and then can return to the team's facility after four weeks and play after six. Beane said the Bills are treating the suspensions like they already know a couple of players will be injured during training camp and must start the season on injured reserve. He also said, "If they were guys that this had happened before, we probably would have avoided them."
Objunobi, who was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday for salary cap space, found out about his positive test close to the time he was finalizing his one-year deal with the Bills and that the team was not aware before it 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 me with open arms. They understood the situation. They've treated me with nothing but open arms and class."
Beane said the Bills would not have signed 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.
The general manager said Ogunjobi came into his office Thursday and discussed the matter. The news delayed his signing from Thursday to Friday. Beane said the development caused new contractual elements that the team needed to work through before signing him.
"I give [Ogunjobi] 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 the NFL was unaware of it because there is more than one sample taken. The second sample results come back three weeks after the first, and until both are tested, the NFL is not notified.
The team was aware of Hoecht's suspension in advance of agreeing to terms with him. Hoecht, who agreed to a three-year deal, found out he had tested positive three weeks into the offseason for "some form of testosterone in my system." He gave interested teams in free agency advance notice of the violation.
Hoecht, who spent the past four seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, said he built a relationship and trust with a trainer for a few years, and that led him to stop being vigilant in checking the substances. He said he would like other NFL players and younger athletes to learn from him.
"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 going to come up on the better side of and use it as motivation and as fuel."