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(CNN)Super Bowl Sunday is a religion of sorts for millions of Americans who gather to watch the NFL's greatest showcase.
And there's no question in George Atallah's mind that this year's game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots is a clean one.
Atallah is director of external affairs for the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), the pro football players' union. The NFL and the NFLPA work together under their collective bargaining agreement to determine the league's drug-testing policy.
Players "want to know that the guy across from them is not cheating," said Atallah. When asked if the league and the union are doing everything they possibly can to catch cheaters, he said that the NFLPA is "proud of (its) drug policies."
"To suggest that we need to add additional layers of voyeurism to what is already an invasive testing protocol is not necessarily going to make it more effective," said Atallah.
But Novitzky sees holes in these protocols.
"There should never be any limitations, in my experience," he said. "When ten players have been tested from the team they know nobody else is going to be tested that week. So that's an issue."
Another hole, he sees, is the time leniency.
"My experience in this world has shown me if you give athletes even a matter of hours of preparing for a test, there (are) things that can be done to manipulate their body to pass a test."
"The amount of blood required for (a PED) test is miniscule, it's literally two tablespoons," explained Novitzky, "which science has shown will be regenerated by the body in a matter of hours. Because of that there's no restrictions on the UFC athlete about when blood can be taken," including before or after a fight.
These differences between the UFC and the NFL amount to "small loopholes that you can drive a semi-tractor through," said Novitzky.
Testing for HGH
Why is having a blood test so crucial? It's the preferred way to measure for human growth hormone (HGH), one of the most commonly used PEDs.
"Athletes have told me anecdotally that they can work out super hard late at night and wake up feeling like a teenager the next day," said Novitzky, explaining an advantage HGH offers.
HGH has been around since the 1970s but 2014 was the first year the NFL began testing for it. The league has yet to uncover a single positive sample. But that may not reflect whether there is abuse.
The NFL uses what is called an isoform test, which detects synthetic HGH. But the test has a very short detection window of just 24 to 48 hours. So if a notification is given to a player to test at home, he may have up to 24 hours before having to submit a sample.TheUSADA, and in turn the UFC, uses a more precise bio marker test which looks for a chemical fingerprint to detect HGH several weeks after usage.
"I think the (NFLPA) would be open to hearing from the league" about bio marker testing, said Atallah.
The USADA can also create a "biological passport" of an athlete by compiling an athlete's results over time. Such a profile can help identify changes or physiological trends that may occur in an athlete's body. The NFL destroys a player's specimens after 90 days, but the USADA can keep them for 10 years. This allows them to test them again the future with even more precise technology.
Why pro sports may oppose rigorous testing
The fear of decimating a team may be one reason why other sport leagues are unwilling to adopt the USADA's rigorous model of testing.
The UFC wants to show other leagues around the world that you can have a gold standard program and still have a successful business model, Novitzky said.
"You're gonna see some bumps and bruises early on. You're gonna see some big-name athletes falling by the wayside. But, eventually, over time, if you do it properly (and) gradually like we did, you'll see similar results as we've seen," he said.
At the UFC 200 tournament, where some of the sport's biggest names fought last July, the sport lost one of the fighters three days before the fight. The USADA called and said it had a positive test for John Jones, a former light heavyweight champion, who was pulled from the fight and did not compete.
"I'll tell you, athletes really looked at that and woke up and said, 'Wow, they're not kidding around. It doesn't matter who you are,' " said Novitzky.
But the NFLPA does not sound receptive to the UFC's level of year-round testing.
"We would never agree to a protocol that ... has a GPS-tracking" standard, said Atallah. The NFL has different standards for a what a player does during the season versus off season, and so they have different testing protocols to reflect that, he said.
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