Tom Brady’s PED Scandal Begins

In you case you missed it — and you probably did because the story was published on a Friday before a government holiday three-day weekend and, in the four hours of NFL exposure I had this weekend, it wasn’t even alluded to once — Boston Magazine (which bills themselves as “The Best of Boston Everyday”) published a piece titled Tom Brady’s Personal Guru Is a Glorified Snake-Oil Salesman, which highlights some *ahem* interesting facts about Tom Brady’s business partner and sports therapist/body coach, Alex Guerrero, including a long history with the FTC for false claims including incorrectly referring to himself as Dr. Alex Guerrero and marketing a supplement via informercials which claimed a 95+% success rate in patients with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease.

Since it has gone up, Deadspin has piggybacked the story highlighting the way Brady promotes Guerrero as a guru on sustained peak performance. Interestingly enough, the emails from which Deadspin referenced in their article are from the cache of Brady’s private emails released as part of the court case between Dreamboat and the Ginger Hammer.

You can read articles linked above or do your own research to find out more details of what has so far been published (basically just structured storytelling of some publicly available information). I’m just going to cut to the chase: this sure sounds like the same tune as the BALCO and Biogenisis performance enhancing drug scandals.

With BALCO, kookie pseudo-practicioner Victor Conte provided willing professional athletes with untraceable and illegal performance enhancing drugs, guising the remarkable results as the effects of minor tweaks to their health, including cleaning trace metals from their system. Basically, the conversation went:

Reporter: “You work with Victor Conte. He has a pretty shady history. What does his program, which has been outlawed in Europe for being a scam, offer you?”

Barry Bonds: “Oh big medicine doesn’t know the human body. They know serving the status quo. They want to perform operations and give you pills. Victor helps my body maintain top efficiency at all times.”

Reporter: “You’re wealthy and your livelihood is the game, yet you’ve not only given this guy with a checkered past an initial chance, you’ve brought him into your inner circle. Aren’t you concerned about how this looks or the potential risks involved.”

Bonds: “No. Why would I be? I don’t care what you all think. You don’t know me. I’m winning and I’m winning clean. Innocent until proven guilty. You got proof I did something wrong, then show me.”

With Biogenisis, non-doctor Doctor Tony Bosch consulted professional athletes across many sports and, when news that previously-busted steroid user Alex Rodriguez was linked to the firm, the Rodriguez camp narrative basically played out as:

“Bosch what? No. Doesn’t ring a bell…..Oh, the place with all the notes and checks from me. Yeah, I guess I do remember them. Think they carry the cherry flavored completely legal supplements I like….Oh, well, I know everything I was SUPPOSED to get was entirely legal. I mean, I trust that he gave me what I paid for. And what I paid top dollar for was completely legal supplements….Oh, you say his records show I knew I was getting PEDs? Well, this is clearly a case of the MLB and the Yankees trying to assassinate my character. No comment…[OJ Simpson leans over and whispers in ARod’s ear]…Oh! And I will not rest until I find out who really was getting PEDs from that place. I want to see justice be served….No further comment…Well, I guess I used steroids in 2004 and lied about it but THIS TIME, I am not lying about cheating!…No further comment.”

Underscoring the BALCO and Biogenesis scandals is the simple reality that cheating is rampant in professional sports (and, basically, professional anything). Brady’s Patriots, of course, are not ashamed of getting any edge they can, and have now absorbed the two greatest punishments in NFL history for cheating scandals in which the team denies any intent to cheat. Frankly, it’s almost not a shock to see this narrative playing out in the NFL realm and to see that all inquiries lead to Tom Brady.

So now we watch the opening scenes of the Tom Brady PED scandal (Injectiongate? Guerreroghazi?) unfold as phase one, media inquiry about an unflattering story regarding Brady’s association with Guerrero, should be mounting. No doubt, a reporter will ask Brady his thoughts on the article and Brady will say he is unaware of it, focused on football, and is confident that nothing about his association with a guy who markets a drink that claims to prevent concussions should leave anyone feeling disconcerted.

The media — as characters in the drama that is the NFL — will take turns establishing #HOTTAEKS across the guilt spectrum, likely with a 10/20/15 MMQB insisting that Brady is so innocent that maybe he wasn’t even playing in the 2014 AFC Championship on one side and [I dunno — one of those ugos from ESPN] on the other lifting this post as proof that Brady is somewhere between a well-aging Rob Lowe and the next Ray Lewis, laughing off legitimate accusations of cheating to achieve your legacy because, of course, why wouldn’t Tom Brady be above suspicion of cheating when his actions have (and will) only completely align with every other PED scandal in professional sports.

The truly scary truth in all of this, of course, is that Roger Goodell may be a brilliant mind for upholding the four game Ballghazi suspension knowing that Brady’s court challenge would expose elements of his greater secrets and scandals and, by allowing Brady to win the Deflategate battle, the quarterback situated himself in the unfortunate position to lose the Legacy War.

As an editorial note (which, really, this whole post is), I personally just took Brady as a cheater and mega-troll with some of his behaviors over the years. But now I’m pretty sure Brady is a cheater who just really thinks he is as untouchable and godlike as everyone in Boston says. And, as was the case with so many other cheating greats, it looks like his pride will be his downfall.

Update (12:00PM – 10/12/15): Brady has gone on Patriots-friendly station WEEI to ‘Open Up’ about Guerrero. In the friendly confines of the station’s morning show, Brady denied significant knowledge of the accusations against Guerrero, praised him directly for Brady’s success, and pointed that “doctors with the highest and best education in our country tell us — tell me — that I’d never be able to play football again” but, without detail, Guerrero has made his successes possible. 

I expect the next step will be the media contacting previous Guerrero clients, one of which will provide damning statement’s that the Brady/Guerrero camp will immediately attempt to squash by assassinating the character of the ex client.