In an email to the Denver Post, Broncos receiver Wes Welker has denied that his four-game suspension after testing positive for amphetamines was due to consuming adulterated MDMA at the Kentucky Derby, a story reported by Pro Football Talk.

"I wouldn't have any idea where to get a Molly or what a Molly is," Welker he said. "That's a joke. I don't do marijuana, I don't do drugs. I don't do any drugs."


Welker's alternate theory for how PED-class amphetamines showed up on his drug test? He's not sure, but he wonders if somebody slipped something into his drink.

We will never, ever know what actually triggered the test. That's how it's supposed to be under the NFL's arcane and secretive drug testing procedures, in which the league is not allowed to announce what a player tested positive for or even the circumstances surrounding it, and players are allowed to offer up any reasoning or excuses without the possibility of being contradicted. A player could tell the media he was abducted by aliens and implanted with HGH and the NFL couldn't say boo about it.


So there's no particular reason to believe or to disbelieve that recreational molly use was what tripped a drug test for Welker, as opposed to taking amphetamines for their performance-enhancing effects. There is reason to believe, given Mike Florio's record of accuracy and his history of using league sources, that the molly defense came up at some point, perhaps at Welker's appeals hearing. Is the molly defense, previously used by Orlando Scandrick, merely the new Adderall defense, an un-counterable claim to win public sympathy and shunt aside claims of PED use?

(Here's where we take a second to clear up the "isn't MDMA already an amphetamine?" question. Yes. But it's classified as a recreational drug, a different type of amphetamine than one that would would under the umbrella of a performance-enhancer. Pure MDMA—which probably doesn't exist on the street—would flag a player under the NFL's substances of abuse policy, and a first offense would carry no suspension. Welker's four-game suspension is the result of a first-time violation of the NFL's separate PED policy.)

Even as Welker publicly denies recreational drug use, he's willing to embrace the plausible deniability that accidental ingestion gives him. From his statement:

"I would NEVER knowingly take a substance to gain a competitive advantage in any way. Anyone who has ever played a down with me, lifted a weight with me, even eaten a meal with me, knows that I focus purely on what I put in my body and on the hard work I put in year round to perform at the highest levels year-in and year-out. "I want any youth football players and all sports fans to know, there are NO shortcuts to success, and nothing but hard work and studying, leads to success."


Welker went on to call the NFL's drug policies and procedures "clearly flawed," and vowed that he would work to save the next innocent EDM fan from falling victim to the tyranny of the undiscriminating piss test.

[Denver Post]