Former NFL defensive lineman Marcellus Wiley has been added as a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the league that alleges the NFL “intentionally, recklessly, and negligently created and maintained a culture of drug misuse, putting profit in place of players’ health.”
The Associated Press first reported of Wiley’s addition to the suit, which was originally filed in the Northern District of California last month. Wiley joins former NFL players Richard Dent, Jim McMahon, Jeremy Newberry, Roy Green, J.D. Hill, Keith Van Horne, Ron Stone and Ron Pritchard as named plantiffs in the suit, which includes more than 750 former players.
The suit, of which PFT has obtained a copy, alleges that Wiley “received hundreds, if not thousands” of shots and pills from medical staff in his time in the league, “including but not limited to NSAIDs such as Toradol and Vioxx, opioids such as Hydrocodone, and sleeping pills such as Ambien.”
The suit also alleges that in April, Wiley “was hospitalized and diagnosed with partial renal failure” and “had lost half of his kidney function.” The suit alleges that Wiley “continues to receive treatment and frequent medical monitoring for this condition.” The suit alleges that Wiley didn’t have a history of kidney disease before his April illness.
In the lawsuit, the attorneys for the plaintiffs allege: “No one from the NFL ever talked to [Wiley] about the side effects of the medications he was being given or cocktailing. These drugs were given to Mr. Wiley even when, because of potential dangerous complications, they were contraindicated for users with asthma, from which Mr. Wiley suffers. After games, these drugs were given to him along with alcohol.”
Wiley told Bleacher Report in May he was weighing whether to join the suit. The 39-year-old Wiley, who played for the Bills, Chargers, Cowboys and Jaguars in a career that spanned from 1997 through 2006, is currently employed by ESPN.
In May, in response to the initial filing of the lawsuit, the NFL released a statement from the president of the NFL Physicians Society that held that the organization’s members “put our players first.”
