TEAM: The Pittsburgh Steelers

SEVERITY:

SUMMARY: Richard Rydze, a Pittsburgh Steelers team doctor from 1985 to 2007, was indicted in 2012 for his long history of purchasing and illegally prescribing anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and painkillers. The physician was also charged with health care fraud for falsely diagnosing more than 90 patients with pituitary dwarfism so they could receive human growth hormones and drugs meant to counteract the side-effects of steroid use.

Rydze was also on the customer list of an Orlando, FL, pharmacy that was raided in February 2007 as part of an interstate steroids ring. Rydze was questioned then about buying $150,000 worth of testosterone and human growth hormone on his credit card in 2006, but was not charged in that investigation.

The Steelers dropped Rydze from their roster of doctors in June 2007.

In the decade prior to Rydze's tenure, many Steelers also admitted to using steroids to gain an advantage. Former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw admitted in 2008 that he used steroids during his playing career. Bradshaw said on Dan Patrick's radio show: “We did steroids to get away the aches and the speed of healing. My use of steroids from a doctor was to speed up injury, and thought nothing of it. It was to speed up the healing process, that was it. It wasn't to get bigger and stronger and faster.”

Former Saints coach Jim Haslett accused the '70s Steelers of being "the ones who kind of started" steroid use in the NFL.

Said Haslett: "It started, really, in Pittsburgh. They got an advantage on a lot of football teams. They were so much stronger (in the) '70s, late '70s, early '80s.

Former Vikings and Giants quarterback Fran Tarkenton corroborated Haslett's story in a June 2009 interview, saying: "We’re playing the Steelers in the Super Bowl in ’75 or ’76 … we’re on the field warming up, and I see these Steeler offensive linemen with their sleeves rolled up, and they've got these bulging muscles. Later, we found out it that … these guys were juiced … all of them."

"We talk now about (former baseball stars) Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. But how about the Steelers of that era? Did that make a difference? Yeah, it made a difference. It increased their performance.”

VICTIM: The entire league

PUNISHED? No but ... it's more probable than not that this was cheating

PUNISHMENT: Predictably, the Steelers and Rydze denied that he ever gave steroids to any Steelers players because the team would never compromise the wellbeing of their players or the integrity of the game by using performance enhancing substances. More likely, with the Steelers long history of steroid cheating, having this doctor on staff made perfect sense for the team. Once his name was released in 2007 as a customer of the steroid company, however, the Steelers wisely decided to go in another direction.

The Steelers and Chargers were well out in front of their opponents on leveraging steroids to gain a competitive advantage. During this period, the Steelers also happened to win 4 Super Bowls. It is more probable than not that the Steelers teams of the 70s were so heavily juiced compared to the rest of the league that these Super Bowls are deeply tainted.

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AWARDS EARNED: Everyone Was Doing It!A Decade of Deceit!Points for Creativity!Champs of the Cheat!

CHEATPOINTS EARNED:+ 8.0