It doesn’t always make sense, but perception sometimes goes further than reality.

If you analyze it logically, the National Football League, a sport in which strength and power can give one player a considerable advantage over another, would come under heavy scrutiny for illegal performance-enhancing drug use.

Yet even though a few players receive suspensions each season after getting popped on a drug test, the general perception from the sporting public is that the NFL has its steroid problem under control.

In fact, whenever the NFL boasts that it has the country’s most comprehensive policy against the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs of any professional league, almost no one disagrees.

More telling is that few have questioned if that means it’s actually effective.

The other side is Major League Baseball.

These jokers have so little credibility in the steroid department that a lot of people believe they don’t know how to hold the cup for a player to urinate in, much less develop a believable course of action.

Despite having fewer players test positive, and making serious strides in its testing policy, Major League Baseball is still viewed by the public as lagging in addressing performance-enhancing drugs.

That’s more perception than actuality.

Again, if you think about it logically, the NFL is probably the sport where steroid users would be up on the latest techniques for beating drug tests.

Because the financial benefits of cheating in the NFL are potentially so great, it stretches reality to believe that only a microscopic percentage of players are getting some kind of chemical assistance.

But that’s what the test results show.

The alarming number of ex-NFL players who experience unusual health-related deaths at early ages and the number of retired players who quickly change back from the Incredible Hulk into David Banner would seem to contradict those results.

Still, whether you actually believe the NFL drug policy is as successful as claimed, it is hard to argue that the league does not at least give the impression that it takes the issue of illegal performance-enhancing drugs seriously.

On Wednesday, the NFL and the players union announced that four months of negotiations led to an agreement for more extensive testing for performance-enhancing drugs and the addition of EPO, a blood-boosting substance, to the list of banned substances.

The union agreed that players sEven after baseball finally did something, its tougher policy is still looked at with skepticism.

The reality is that because the technology for catching cheaters is so many steps behind the new methods of cheating, the NFL’s stricter policy isn’t going to stop the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

But by creating these new tests and penalties, the NFL once again gives out the perception that it is indeed sincere about addressing the problem.

That’s a point Major League Baseball just can’t seem to get across.