NEW YORK (AP) — Six players were suspended for four games without pay by the NFL on Tuesday for violating the league’s anti-doping policy.All six were punished for using a diuretic, which can serve as a masking agent for steroids.The suspended players were running back Deuce McAllister and defensive linemen Charles Grant and Will Smith of New Orleans; defensive linemen Kevin and Pat Williams of Minnesota; and long snapper Bryan Pittman of Houston.The punishment means all six will miss the end of the regular season, an especially harsh blow to Minnesota, which relies heavily on the Williamses in its run defense, which ranks second in the league.Angelo Wright, the Williamses’ agent, said he would file a motion in federal court Wednesday morning, presumably to put off the suspensions.A seventh player, Atlanta’s Grady Jackson, was not suspended. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Jeff Pash, the league’s chief counsel, had asked for additional information from Jackson.If a player’s team makes the playoffs, the player will be eligible to return to the active roster Dec. 29.Adolpho Birch, the NFL’s vice president of law and labor policy, would not disclose during a conference call when the players tested positive.Word of the positive test first leaked in late October. When asked why it took until the final four games of the regular season to hand down the suspensions, Birch said it was “a function of a lot of factors.””If you ask most coaches, every game is important. I don’t think they’d differentiate between the first and the last,” Birch said. “We do have things in place to get them done as quickly as possible. But we had to deal with the number of players involved and adjust travel schedules. We have to fit it around the players’ ability to attend.”David Cornwell, the lawyer for Pittman and the three Saints, called the decisions “inconsistent with the objectives of the steroid policy.”—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s sports staff at [email protected]