CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — No one might overlook the off-the-field neighborhood work — bankrolling a university scholarship endowment, a Thanksgiving meals drive, a Christmastime reward giveaway — that forged Thomas Davis of the Carolina Panthers as one of many true good guys round Charlotte and throughout the NFL.
However what actually turned Davis into royalty in North Carolina was how powerful he was. A legend was born when the linebacker who had already come again from a torn ACL in the identical knee thrice — and appeared to get higher after every comeback — suited up and performed within the 2016 Tremendous Bowl regardless of a freshly damaged arm.
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Seems, all these comebacks from all that ache took their toll and led to a deeper and extra troubling story: As his profession wound down, Davis grew to become depending on opioids, an dependancy he blames for the unseemly breakup along with his spouse, Kelly, and the sullying of his once-pristine popularity.
The Related Press discovered that it was prescriptions crammed to feed Davis’ dependancy that led to the downfall of Joan Rubinger, a self-styled healer who listed Davis amongst her dozens of high-profile pro-athlete purchasers who swore by her pain-relief miracles.
“I reside my life in a approach that I wished my youngsters to all the time be pleased with me,” stated Davis, a father of 4, in a latest episode of The Pivot Podcast. the place he mentioned his drug downside publicly for the primary time. “That was one thing that was extraordinarily vital to me. And among the issues that occurred, it made it extraordinarily laborious for them to ever be pleased with the person that I had began to develop into.”
Davis didn’t reply to a number of calls and texts from AP and nobody answered his door in North Carolina when visited by an AP reporter. Requests for remark had been additionally made by way of his representatives.
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A Man of the 12 months and a sturdy presence at outdoors linebacker
The excessive level of Davis’ profession might need been 2014 — the season he was honored because the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the 12 months. The award, which comes with a trophy and a patch the participant wears on his uniform for the remainder of his profession, acknowledges the winner for his “neighborhood service, charity work and good play on the sphere.”
There was loads of good play.
A school All-American at Georgia, Davis might need been voted to greater than three NFL Professional Bowls and named to multiple AP first All-Professional group had he performed in an even bigger market — or possibly not shared the limelight with Luke Kuechly, the linebacker who was inducted into the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame earlier this month and identify checked his good buddy, Davis, as a part of his induction speech.
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“I could not have requested for a greater particular person to start out my enjoying profession than subsequent to Thomas,” Kuechly stated. “He taught me about effort, toughness, competitiveness, and most of all, having joined the sport of soccer.”
However Davis by no means lacked for accolades within the city the place he performed the primary 14 of his 16 NFL seasons.
He performed 9 of these years after his third knee surgical procedure. All his greatest seasons got here throughout that stretch.
Off the sphere, he was a continuing presence at charity occasions, lots of which he sponsored. Davis, his spouse and youngsters painted the image of a household that had deep, significant connections to the heartbeat of this burgeoning southern metropolis in NASCAR nation that, like so many cities, locations its sports activities stars on a pedestal.
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All of this match into Davis’ wider life story.
Raised in a one-parent home in Shellman — a rural farming city in southwest Georgia — his mom moved 40 miles away to Eufala, Alabama, for a higher-paying job when Davis was in eleventh grade to assist pay the payments.
Davis stayed behind and moved in with an older cousin so he might hold enjoying at Randolph-Clay Excessive in close by Cuthbert, the place, he stated, he had carved out his area of interest on the soccer area as “The Man.”
“My mother allowed me, in that second, to say, ‘Hey, I am establishing myself,'” Davis stated. “I had a aim. She had belief in me that I used to be going to make the correct choices.”
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Davis’ drive to point out comebacks had been doable paid off
For greater than a decade, he did. The a number of comebacks from knee surgical procedures — he is believed to be the primary and solely NFL participant to play on after tearing the identical ACL thrice — made him bigger than life in North Carolina.
“I did not need to be that token, like, mascot for ACL recoveries,” Davis stated. “I wished to be the person who got here again and confirmed each NFL membership that you do not have to surrender in your gamers once they face accidents.”
His first-team All Professional honor (2015), three Professional Bowls (2015-17) and that larger-than-life journey to the Tremendous Bowl (2016) all got here after the knee surgical procedures.
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“The man has been by way of loads and is the center and soul of our group,” teammate Dwan Edwards stated within the leadup to Carolina’s 24-10 loss to Denver within the title recreation. “He is our emotional chief, our playmaker on the sphere.”
The primary crack on this storybook story got here in 2018 when Davis was handed a four-game ban for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancer coverage after testing optimistic for a banned estrogen blocker, the likes of which can be utilized to masks steroid use. He stated he did not cheat, had been utilizing the identical dietary supplements as all the time, however didn’t protest the ban.
Davis stated the ban precipitated him to rethink his plans to retire. He spent 2019 with the Chargers and 2020 in Washington. That 12 months, the top coach of the Commanders was discovered to have been illegally distributing oxycodone to gamers — an unsettling reminder of the NFL’s troublesome historical past with painkillers.
The league spent round 10 years defending a lawsuit accusing its groups of over-prescribing opioids and different painkillers. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed in 2023 due to what a decide stated was its overly sprawling nature.
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One of many revelations that got here out throughout that interval was a research of former gamers, 52% of whom stated they’d used prescription opioids throughout their profession.
The NFL Gamers Affiliation didn’t need to supply remark about this story. The league, which has enhanced its monitoring of prescriptions for the reason that lawsuit, stated it was unaware of Rubinger. It referenced a research from 2021-22 that confirmed solely 10% of gamers acquired prescriptions for opioids.
A drug investigation and the downfall of one in every of Charlotte’s beloved households
But it surely was in 2022 that the Drug Enforcement Administration opened its investigation after Kelly Davis accused Rubinger, the “ache physician,” of fueling her husband’s opioid dependancy. Authorities alleged Davis acquired greater than 13,000 capsules for Oxycodone and Percocet from November 2019 by way of March 2024.
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“She preyed on these guys’ ache,” Kelly Davis instructed AP. “They’d cash, they’d accidents, they’d mental-health points.”
Davis’ dependancy casts a special gentle on the couple’s separation, their eventual divorce and the mini-scandal that erupted when information broke of Kelly Thomas’ 2025 arrest for assaulting a lady she believed was sleeping together with her husband.
As of late, Davis continues to be a presence across the Panthers facility, the place the reminiscences of all the nice he did for the group and the neighborhood reside on.
However, he concedes, he is been chastened by his beautiful downfall. Davis stated he has gotten the assistance he wants, and that his focus is on making an attempt to make issues proper along with his youngsters, the oldest of whom, Thomas Davis Jr., is a freshman linebacker at Notre Dame. Davis Sr. says he locations blame on no one however himself, however is effectively conscious of the toll medication took.
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“I take full possession of each single element of all the things that is occurred in my life,” he stated. “However on the finish of the day, I do know there have been some components that befell that finally led me to an area that I did not anticipate being” in.
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Mustian reported from Charlotte. AP Sports activities Author Steve Reed in Charlotte contributed.
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