Your inbox approves Men's coaches poll Women's coaches poll Play to win 25K!
CHRISTINE BRENNAN
Peyton Manning

Brennan: Should we believe in Peyton Manning?

Christine Brennan
USA TODAY Sports

The knee-jerk defense of Peyton Manning came swiftly, and predictably. Tom Brady offered stout praise for his longtime rival. The Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts joined as one to stand by their man. Mike Ditka, not surprisingly, killed the messenger.

Peyton Manning has offered a vehement denial to allegations that he used human-growth hormone.

They all believe, as millions of sports fans undoubtedly do, that Manning did not cheat by taking human-growth hormone from an anti-aging clinic in Indianapolis, as a former intern at the facility told Al Jazeera America in a report that aired over the holiday weekend.

They say this even as they must know that we are most definitely still in the midst of the so-called "Steroids Era" in sports — or the performance-enhancing drug era, or the HGH era, call it what you will. They have lived through the lies and deception of Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez, among others.

Disgraced track star Tim Montgomery understands denial by Manning, others

And yet they know — they are absolutely sure — that the squeaky clean Manning isn't doing what so many others before him have done: cut a corner there, ask a doctor for a little help here, tell a lie or two or 20 to keep the career going just a bit longer, to finish another lucrative contract, to keep the endorsements coming.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

How do they know this? How do any of us know what Peyton Manning, or any other athlete, is doing off the field and beyond the glare of public scrutiny? How would we ever know what Manning is doing at home?

Haven't we learned anything from all of our other heroes who ended up lying to us?

Manning certainly might be telling the truth: That what Al Jazeera America is reporting is untrue to its core, that this is all a terrible mistake, that the after-the-fact recanting of intern Charlie Sly is the true story, not the hidden-camera version.

Who cares if Peyton Manning used HGH?

Except for this: some of the allegations made by Sly actually have been proven to be true. He was right that Manning went to the Guyer Institute, the clinic in Indianapolis. And Manning has not denied that a package came to his home from the clinic, as Sly also alleges.

Is there anything else Sly is right about?

It's absolutely worth finding out.

Charlie Sly certainly is one of the most reviled people in sports today. He is in good company. The pantheon of PED whistle blowers over the past few decades is not a list of Boy Scouts and Sunday school teachers. A show of hands, please, for those who think Jose Canseco is a fine, upstanding citizen.

NFL to investigate report of HGH linked to Peyton Manning

While many still can't stand the original MLB tattle-tale, there's one other word we can use for Canseco to this day:

Right.

He totally nailed what was going on with the Oakland A's and MLB in the late 1980s and 1990s.

This doesn't mean Sly is right. It doesn't mean he is wrong. It means that we don't know.

It makes perfect sense that people want to believe Peyton Manning isn't cheating. We love sports because it creates heroes, and Manning is one of the biggest and best. We want to believe people like Manning are as good as we hope they are.

We want to believe, period. Millions of us just waited for Santa Claus. It's what we do, and that's great.

But there is a familiar arc to these stories, and it's an arc that almost always takes us to the truth.

We've followed that arc before. We should follow it now.

Featured Weekly Ad