One off-the-field issue looms large over the Green Bay Packers as they open training camp this week. The NFL will be in town to interview linebackers Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers about drugs.
Both players were implicated in an Al Jazeera report that came out in December. The league has yet to speak to either player, but Packers coach Mike McCarthy doesn’t seem concerned.
“I have not talked to them recently [about the investigation]; I talked to them back in the season when it first came out, and frankly I don’t have anything else to really report on it,” McCarthy said Monday. “I have no reason to be concerned based on the conversations I’ve been a part of.”
There is, of course, the potential that Matthews and Peppers could be suspended. Both players have denied any wrongdoing and the chief source for the report has since recanted his statements.
The NFL has been persistent in their investigation, however.
On Monday, the league cleared former Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning of any wrongdoing. Manning was the main focus of the report and his absolution could be considered a good sign for the Packers being investigated.
In their statement, the NFL said they “found no credible evidence” Manning or his wife received deliveries of HGH as was stated in the report.