Nick Piccone
Ryan Howard is among many athletes that were named in an alleged doping ring, according to an undercover investigation that’s set to air on the Al Jazeera network tomorrow night at 9 P.M.
The report, which was published on Huffington Post on Saturday night, named Peyton Manning as the main figure in the undercover investigation. According to the report, Manning was sent HGH, otherwise known as human growth hormone, a substance that has been banned from the NFL since 2011 and which the NFL has begun testing for last year, when he was recovering from neck surgery in 2011. His wife was sent the packages so Peyton’s name would never be attached to them.
That’s the bombshell of the story nationally. Locally, there’s another bombshell. Howard is named in the report as an athlete who has received Delta-2, a “hormone supplement that is steroidal in nature but is not an anabolic steroid according to online product descriptions.”
There’s a bunch of football players who take this, and a bunch of baseball players who take it too,” Sly tells Collins in the documentary.
“Delta-2 is not for use by anybody subject to performance-enhancing drug tests,” state online reviews for the product. Major League Baseball has banned the drug explicitly.
The report does not link Manning to Delta-2, but Sly and Robertson name multiple football players as customers, including Green Bay Packers linebacker Mike Neal. Neal, Sly says, connected him with multiple teammates, including defensive end Julius Peppers. Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison is another NFL player he has supplied, Sly says.
Sly also names Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and Washington Nationals infielder Ryan Zimmerman as players who received the drug from him. He also claims in the report he gave drugs to Mike Tyson.
Liam Collins, an undercover reporter, was able to expose the story by posing as an athlete who wants to participate in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. You can watch the preview of the story that’s set to air tomorrow below.
https://youtu.be/kxdPpW026Hc
Sly has publicly recanted those statements, according to this video.