Should the NFL Start Penalizing Players for Faking Injuries?

A recent trend that has started to come up more and more in the NFL is players on both offense and defense faking injuries in order to save some clock for their team or just catch their breath.

Although it is tough to discern at the time, we've seen shining examples of it in past games. Even though it is against the written rules of the league, players such as Brian Urlacher have admitted to faking injuries in order to slow down fast-paced offenses. 

Of course there are little aspects of the game such as this that are overlooked, but should faking injuries go without punishment? In order to answer that, you must first look at how much it impacts the game.

Surely different instances have varying levels of importance in their respective games, but in general, it could play a major role in shifting momentum of the game. If players are able to catch their breath when faced with an unrelenting no-huddle offense, then obviously they'll be in better shape to make a play, but is that fair?

Considering it gives every player on both sides of the ball a bit of a breather, it's hard to argue that that is not a fair deal for both teams. While it is an unnecessary break in the game, it doesn't particularly favor one team over the other. The only way it could be unfair in this situation is if it proves to be that disruptive to the momentum of the driving offense.

It's not like this issue pops up in every game, but it has become a bigger issue over the years. The NFL issued a reminder to the league earlier this season. "The Competition Committee deprecates feigning injuries, with subsequent withdrawal, to obtain a timeout without penalty. Coaches are urged to cooperate in discouraging this practice," the NFL said, according to NFL.com. 

What would also make it hard for the NFL to enforce a no-flopping rule is the brutality of the game itself. Les Carpenter (Yahoo! Sports) said it perfectly when he said, "...the mistake in football is to judge another man's pain in a sport built on violence and deem it to be untrue."

Carpenter goes on to talk about the Rashad Johnson incident from last season. Although he didn't appear to be in physical pain to the thousands of people in attendance, he actually lost a chunk of his finger in his glove during a hit. It's cases like this that make the topic one big grey area.

Obviously there are injuries that players can sustain that aren't apparent through their exterior, so how will the NFL be able to discern when they are really hurt or are playing possum? Simply put, they can't. Not every player who fakes an injury will make it as obvious as Deon Grant when he was with the New York Giants a couple of years back. 

This is one of the more sticky issues that the NFL has to deal with, and until they can find a thorough and accurate way to decide whether a player is faking an injury or not, there's not much they can do to fix this problem. The best thing they can do right now is just continue to reiterate the rules to the league and hope that they choose to honor it.