Sure, I bet I'm going to get a lot of "fake" accusations over this, but there's no way I'm going to identify myself here, so either believe it or don't. I just need to get this off my chest because there's nowhere else I can vent.
I play football professionally. Not going to say which team, position, or number of years playing, etc that might give away any identifying information, so don't even bother trying to figure that out. I will say that I'm not a rookie and leave it at that.
In case you didn't already assume this, the culture of drug use is rampant. Everyone in the league, and I mean everyone, uses PED's. We have to in order to perform at the level we're expected to perform; it's literally an unwritten, unspoken part of the contract. If someone decides to be captain moral high ground jackass and refuses to use them, they'll end up being marginalized by the coaching staff and looked down upon by the rest of the guys for not contributing in every way they should be, and they may be kept off the field or even forced out of the organization altogether if they're expendable. This fate is generally decided before a player's rookie season even begins, so it's not really an issue with veteran players. Nobody questions it, everyone just knows it's what you're supposed to do.
Contrary to popular belief, the league doesn't test for them, besides a few specific substances, and everyone knows the routine and how to beat it. They don't test for synthetic HGH at all, for example, which is one of the PED's I use.
What I hate most however (and this may sound contradictory given the first thing, but it isn't and I'll explain why) is the degree to which games or point differentials are fixed. Everyone knows it happens, but most people aren't aware of how often it happens. It's way, way, way more common than most people are aware of. For example, I can tell you right now, with absolute certainty, that the Chargers/Colts game on MNF was fixed. No, I don't play for either of them, but everything about it was textbook (just look at all the "dropped" passes to see what I mean.) Not just the obvious things like dropped passes, but the subtle things too like little subtleties that indicate the front seven is allowing lanes to open up. Once you've participated in it you learn to recognize it. Players laugh about it like it's all a big joke and it pisses me off.
This doesn't conflict with the expectation of PED use because generally only "junk games" are fixed because those are the deals players are most likely to take - by that I mean meaningless games between two losing teams, or a losing team against a winning team where the winning team has no competition in their division anyway and wouldn't be hurt by dropping a game. The latter scenario tends to pay out more, since more can be put on the line without drawing suspicion (if an unusual amount of betting activity takes place on a meaningless game, it attracts unwanted attention...)
I've participated in a couple of fixed games. I absolutely hate myself for it, it is a lot bigger of an issue for me than the PED use. I feel like I am shitting all over the sport that I love and it isn't fair to the fans who pay to see what they think is a genuine game. But I also feel like I can't speak up for fear of being marginalized or not taken seriously.
I generally despise the league for this and other reasons. All the league cares about is $$$, they don't care about the integrity of the game. I'm not the only player who feels this way. Anyway, I cut short my weight routine to write this, so I better get back to battle.
