I agree with those that feel that the future salvation of their careers would have been better had they stated that they had fallen asleep rather than clain they were distracted. If they had fallen asleep, they would most likely have gone out and demonstrated that they suffered from sleep apnea, been properly treated and eventually reinstated. And they would have called further attention to the fact of fatigue in the cockpit, distant duty bases and deadhead flying to their bases etc.
Many pilots have to commute to their duty bases and actually have to start their day many hours before they arrive at their duty stations.
Asleep or distracted, the best tact is obviously for the crew to be as truthful as they can be. But I would have rather they had fallen asleep than have claimed to be distracted.