Neal suspended 4 games

The NFL suspended Green Bay Packers defensive end Mike Neal without pay Tuesday for the team’s first four games of the 2012 regular season for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing substances. In a statement, the NFL said Neal will be eligible to return to the Packers’ active roster on the day after the team’s fourth regular-season game. Neal is eligible to participate in all offseason and preseason practices and games. Neal, a second-round pick out of Purdue in the 2010 NFL Draft, has played in nine regular-season games and one playoff game over two seasons because of injuries. He has seven tackles, a sack and a forced fumble in those games.

The players’ union wants the NFL to delay announcing any punishment to the New Orleans Saints for their bounty program until it can conduct its own investigation. The union said last week that members of its legal team would investigate the program the NFL says gave thousands of dollars in payoffs to players for hits that knocked targeted opponents out of games. The NFL said the amounts reached their height in 2009, the season the Saints won the Super Bowl.

Two Denver Broncos players are suing the NFL to overturn their drug suspensions, saying the league violated protocol in collecting urine samples from linebacker D.J. Williams and defensive lineman Ryan Mcbean, and then refused to clear the players even after the collector was fired. Williams and Mcbean, suspended without pay for Denver’s first six games of the 2012 season, filed their suit Monday in Denver District Court.