Ray Lewis Appears Deceptive in Response to Banned Substance Allegation

During a  Media Day press conference on Tuesday, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis addressed a Sports Illustrated article alleging that Lewis had taken the banned substance IGF-1 to speed his recovery from a shoulder injury. Our analysis of Lewis’s response identified a cluster of deceptive behaviors, and yielded the conclusion that Lewis is likely being untruthful about the matter.

The following is the full text of Lewis’s response:

I’m going to say it again, for everybody to hear it again. That was a two-year-old story that you want me to refresh. I wouldn’t give him the credit to even mention his name, or his antics in my speeches or my moment. I can’t do it. So I won’t even speak about it, because I’ve been in this business 17 years, and nobody has ever got up with me every morning and trained with me. Every test I ever took in the NFL, there’s never been a question if I’ve ever even thought about using anything. So to even entertain stupidity like that, tell him to go try to get his story out of somebody else.

Below is an encapsulation of the deceptive behaviors we identified:

Referral statement: “I’m going to say it again, for everybody to hear again.”

A referral statement is a deceptive behavior that is employed to enhance credibility by means of an inference to repetition. The idea here is that the more frequently a statement is repeated, the more likely we are to be open to its credibility.

Attack behavior: “I wouldn’t give him the credit to even mention his name, or his antics in my speeches or my moment. … So to even entertain stupidity like that, tell him to go try to get his story out of somebody else.”

When the truth isn’t a person’s ally and he’s backed into a corner, especially when the matter at hand has potentially serious consequences, he often resorts to attacking his questioner or accuser. In this case, Lewis is attacking David Epstein, co-writer of the Sports Illustrated article, with whom Lewis had spoken in the Ravens locker room during the season.

Convincing statements: “I’ve been in this business 17 years, and nobody has ever got up with me every morning and trained with me. Every test I ever took in the NFL, there’s never been a question if I’ve ever even thought about using anything.”

Convincing statements are statements an individual makes to influence his audience’s perception of him. They are intended to convince us of something, rather than to convey information that gets to the truth of the matter at hand. In this case, Lewis is striving to paint himself in a favorable light by stressing how hard and diligently he’s worked during his 17-year career, and how his drug tests have never been questioned by the NFL.

Failure to deny. At no point in his comments did Lewis deny taking the banned substance. When a person does not explicitly deny an allegation, there’s a reason for that. If the truth isn’t his ally, he’s more inclined psychologically to respond with information he feels more comfortable conveying.

Unintended messages: “I can’t do it” and “Every test I ever took in the NFL, there’s never been a question if I’ve ever even thought about using anything.”

By focusing on the literal meaning of what a person says, we can spot unintended messages, which are conveyed without the person even realizing it. With the statement, “I can’t do it,” referring to mentioning the name and the accusations of his accuser, the likely unintended message in our opinion is that he can’t say anything that would refute the accusations, because they’re true.

In addition to being a convincing statement, the “Every test I ever took…” statement also conveys the likely unintended message that he should be exonerated not because he never took banned substances (since in our opinion he can’t truthfully claim that to be the case), but because the NFL never questioned his drug tests.