Oakland Raiders: Marcel Reece PED Explanation Strange

Per Bill Williamson of ESPN, The Oakland Raiders announced Monday that team fullback and long-time Pro Bowler Marcel Reece was suspended by the NFL for four games for a violation of the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy. Reece, who was slated to return to the Pro Bowl this season, will start serving the suspension in this Sunday’s season finale against Kansas City.

Reece, both through his appeal and in a statement afterwards, contended that an unexpected chemical reaction that his body produced caused the failed test. Specifically, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, Reece stated he took a legal plant root extract Umcka that his body turned into metylhexanamine, a banned dietary supplement.

While Reece seems sincere in his denials of intentionally taking a banned substance, his own explanation is hard to believe for a few reasons.

First, part of the problem in believing Reece is that it appears that a good way to try to avoid getting caught is by not directly consuming the banned substance but instead taking a legal substance (Umcka) that by some bodily function morphs into a PED (Metylhexanamine). You immediately have plausible deniability if you’re caught, as Reece does in this situation.

It seems fairly ridiculous to most NFL fans these days in an era of positive PED tests to believe Reece’s “chemical reaction” story is completely coincidental. Reece’s theory is that it was basically bad luck that the root extract he took turned into a banned dietary supplement. He is essentially blaming his own body’s natural processes, and not his bad judgement, for his suspension.

Every time a story like this comes out, one has to wonder how an NFL player, or any pro sports athlete, can allow this to happen. They have the resources and contacts to avoid these types of issues, yet time after time they get caught to some degree with their hands in the cookie jar.

Oct 12, 2015; San Diego, CA, USA; San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates (85) runs after making a fourth quarter catch against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Qualcomm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

When San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates was suspended for taking a banned substance back in July, he admitted to unintentionally taking a PED and accepted his punishment. Gates basically stated that his ignorance was not an excuse. Reece should take a lesson from Gates in this situation: The only person in control and responsible for what goes in your body is you.

Instead, Reece intimated that the NFL’s flawed system for testing is the problem, and that there was no way of knowing this would happen. While that may be true, it seems that a consult with a team physician would have been the way to go. Umcka, the supplement Reece contends he took legally, is touted as a natural cold remedy. Surely the team doctor could have steered him towards an NFL unquestioned cold remedy, if that is in fact why Reece was using it.

There is not much in the realm of scientific studies on Umcka, a plant root extract apparently used as a cold remedy. Pelargonium sidoides, another name for this extract or plant, appears to come from the geranium plant from South Africa.

What I could find on the plant in terms of Reece’s claim that it was converted to metylhexaneamine by his body seems to muddy his explanation.