Manning’s legacy will survive HGH talk

So, Peyton Manning has been accused of using human growth hormone. Several other athletes were as well, by an ex-employee of an antiaging clinic who was speaking to an undercover camera and therefore had a little less obvious incentive to lie, but Peyton was the biggest fish by several miles. So those athletes can wait in line, anonymous as almost every Star Wars stormtrooper, who — spoiler alert — have not gotten better trained in the 30 years between the Ewoks and the new movie. Just run out there, guys. And no, we haven’t developed armour that’s better than spraypainted white cardboard, no. That stuff, like new cinematic plot points, costs money.

The Empire — it’ll always be the Empire to me — was always vulnerable, and so may be Manning, even at this late stage of his scintillating career. The report, a documentary that aired on Al-Jazeera, wasn’t a bulletproof case — it relied heavily on one source, uncorroborated. But Al Jazeera says it confirmed that HGH was sent to Manning’s wife, Ashley Manning, through 2011. Manning, at the time, was recovering from multiple neck surgeries. Hmm.

Still . . . eh. No sport makes you take a nihilistic free-market postapocalyptic view of performanceenhancing drugs than football, so that’s a strike against this being a scandal. You’ve had four neck surgeries that left your arm a wet cardboard tube? You play in a sport that is basically car crashes with team colours? Here’s a drug from the future that turns your skeleton into a sort of ivory titanium, and allows you to jump seven feet in the air. It’s OK, use it, it’s only fair.

Second, Al-Jazeera. We’ll get to that in a minute.

And third, if there was ever anybody equipped to fight a public relations and image war, it’s Peyton Manning. First, he’s the aw-shucksiest. His angry public rebuttal to the story featured the words “slapstick,” “it’s a freaking joke,” “busted my butt,” and “Hoda and Kathie Lee.” He said, “Time probably wound up being my best medicine, along with hard work,” and “There are not shortcuts in the NFL. I’ve done it the long way, I’ve done it the hard way.” He is the most natural actor of almost any athlete, and he is beloved. Remember him on Saturday Night Live? Hilarious.

He is also politically savvy, or at least connected. Manning hired Ari Fleischer for crisis management, who is best known for being the White House spokesman who, in the days after 9/11, said “all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do.” Oh, and helped lie America into a war, as one does. One of his contributions so far has been to say of Al-Jazeera, “consider the source.” For many Americans, this, like several of Fleischer’s other pronouncements, will be considered something other than absurd. The brute irony will, for many, breeze on by.

There will now be fights over details. More facts will emerge. Maybe his wife used the HGH for fertility treatments since she had twins that year, but who knows? Of course Peyton Manning might have used HGH. He’s competitive enough that he has intentionally tanked baseline tests in case he ever gets a concussion. Testing’s a joke. Drugs make all the sense in the world, in the NFL, for everyone.

But it probably won’t matter. Manning will have legions of defenders, because he’s good ol’ Peyton, because he will have a post-football career in either broadcasting or politics along with advertising and because this report isn’t bulletproof.

Still, there is now a vulnerability to Peyton Manning’s gargantuan imperial image, a little one. And unlike Star Wars, it makes all the sense in the world as to why it’s there.

Last week this space went 7-9. As always, all lines could change.