No More ‘Faking It’: NFL Memo Threatens Fines and Suspensions For ‘Faked Injuries’

You had to see this one coming.  Something as lame a policy as the guys hobbling off the football field.  The NFL issued a memo today stating that changed it’s stance from encouraging coaches to prevent players from practicing the fine art of ‘faking injuries’ to threatening fines and suspensions to players if league officials determine a player was indeed faking an injury.  Guess players better hire Elaine to do a little coaching on how to be a good ‘faker.’ (forgive the subtitles)

This is such a BS memo and policy change.  The league is going outside of it boundaries in enforcing rules and handing out penalties.  I’m not arguing that players don’t ‘fake it.’  I’m sure it happens more often than one would think.  But it is a fine line and dangerous ground to tred on when you are getting ‘inside’ the players mind and body to determine if a player truly is hurt enough to cease play on the field.

There are two major issues with the knee jerk reaction (no pun intended Deon) of Monday night’s game between the Giants and Rams:

1) The only reason that the league is even considering this is because one of their young poster boy QB’s, Sam Bradford, openly complained that the supposed fake injuries.  Bradford claims that it was obvious the Giants were buying time to offset the Ram’s no-huddle offense –  specifically the ‘injury’ to Deon Grant right as the Rams entered the Red Zone.  There’s only one real response to Bradford’s claim – quit crying you sack of crap.  It’s your fault and your offenses fault that your drive to the end zone stalled out and you had to settle for a field goal.  The Giants could have as easily called a time out to ‘stop your rhythm’ :snicker:  As a good offense and good QB, you should have been able to complete the drive and put 6 points on the board.  Don’t throw Grant under the bus just for your inadequacies.

2) This very policy goes against the NFL’s angelic crusade in looking out for player safety.  Should a player ever be deemed ‘faking it’ and subsequently be fined/suspended for it, what player will drop to the turf in order to get help off the field afterwords?  Any minor bang up will get played through and possibly lead to a bigger injury.  What is now determined as an ‘injury?’  Guys have the wind knocked out of them all the time and are not really injured.  But an injury timeout is taken anyways.  Should a guy get penalized for that?  How would an official looking at game footage determine what’s happening internally to a player?  It’s ludicrous to think that someone will have the knowledge and ability to determine those things.  So you will now have players not taking themselves out for minor things that they should come out of the game temporarily for – thus resulting in a bigger injury or an complete and unfair advantage to the offensive side of the ball.  So it’s BS – period.

Where does the league stand on an offensive linemen going down in the final two minutes of a game winning drive?  Currently, there is a ‘penalty’ in place to charge a time out for such things so that it would discourage any faking.  Is the league prepared to get rid of that rule and instead enforcing this memo?  Please.

I think with the non-explosion of illegal hits and the fact that kickoffs have been somewhat successful this season – the league is finding more things to meddle in.  I really hope for the players sake that the NFLPA steps in and lays the hammer down on this one.  This is a completely unfair rule to everyone on that football field, and the hypocrisy buck needs to stop here and now.