NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Needs to Stop the Faking of Football Injuries

We’re unaffected when it happens in soccer.  We’re surprised when it happens in baseball.  We’re used to it when it happens in basketball.  But we’re appalled when it happens in football: i.e. faking injuries.

Think about it.  We’re unaffected when, during soccer games, flamboyant football flopper's dive to the turf in apparent agony as if shot from above by a stinger missile. Only seconds later, we’re unfazed as these players miraculously recover and sprint back onto the pitch as if competing in an Olympic 100 meter finals.

We’re surprised when it happens in baseball. Especially when 3,000-plus hit future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter feigns an injury after seemingly getting hit by a pitch during a critical September game at Tropicana Field, with his Yanks clinging to a half game lead over the resilient Tampa Bay Rays. But we attribute Jeter's gamesmanship to his baseball brilliance for getting on base.

We’re used to it when it happens in basketball, especially with Los Angeles Lakers' Derek Fisher on the court. After all, Fisher is a Laker who obviously learned his craft from former Laker Vlade Divac.

But we’re absolutely appalled when it happens in football. Yes, in smash mouth football, as it did so unabashedly during ESPN's Monday Night Football telecast between the New York Giants and St. Louis Rams.

With Rams QB Sam Bradford effortlessly racing his team inside the Giants 10 yard line, two Giant defenders—DB Deon Grant and LB Jacquian Williams—as if choreographed, mysteriously yet simultaneously fell to the Met Life Stadium turf with apparent injuries. An officials' time out is taken, no penalty flags are thrown and a certain touch down scoring drive is subsequently halted.

Even the normally unbiased and usually uncritical ESPN announcers chuckled at the Giant defenders' ridiculous chicanery. Jon Gruden commented that the Giants' actions is a common tactic that teams employ against a high energy, no huddle offense.  

Just a day later, on ESPN's popular "Pardon The Interruption" show, Michael Wilbon proposed a whopping $1 million fine for teams who condone such behavior and are caught "faking it" for a second time.

Yes, the faking of injuries may be a shrewd tactic, but it should never happen in football. It appalls us. It smacks of un-sportsmanlike conduct that affords flailing defenders an unfair advantage when getting steam rolled by a superior offense.  

Following MNF's faking fiasco, expect the NFL league office to intervene. Currently, the only stipulation in the NFL rule book to dissuade defenders from dropping like pigeons shot out of the sky states, "when a referee determines a palpably unfair act deprived a team of a touch down, a touch down should be awarded."

Certainly a stiff penalty for egregiously stupid on field behavior, but probably not 100 percent applicable or enforceable in this glaring situation we witnessed Monday night.  

So, should the officials have awarded the Rams their near certain touch down they were driving towards before the two Giant defenders blatantly faked injuries in the red zone? Probably not.

However, Commissioner Goodell and his staff need to monitor Oscar worthy flops like Grant's and Williams' in the future and enact proper penalties and stiffer fines for diving divas who feign injury. 

Otherwise our glorious game of American football will share the shameless similarity of flamboyant flopping to European football (soccer)...and that should never happen in America.  

Straight talk. No static.  

MIKE—the ultimate talking head on sports!  

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