NFL Puts Kibosh on Fake Injuries: Is League Serious About Protecting Players?

The NFL has become bigger, faster and stronger than ever before. In a golden age of passing production and offensive prowess, defensive players do all they can to get to the quarterback or layout receivers. Even if it means falling down in droves at the end of a play to stop the clock. 

It's ironic that the NFL would take a harsh stance against defensive players faking injuries on the field when they claim to want to protect players against injuries as much as possible. Players get banged up at the end of plays all the time and then walk it off quickly. I'm not here to say that Deon Grant and Jacquain Williams faked injuries in Week 2 against the Rams—you can be the judge of that yourself—but if they were injured they had every right to have the medical staff on the field. 

Strangely enough, the league does little to help defensive players from being injured. Eric Berry, who looks to be the league's next Troy Polamalu, had his promising sophomore season ended by Stevie Johnson only five snaps into Week 1. Johnson attempted a cut block and launched himself helmet first into Berry's knee, tearing his ACL. 

Though what Johnson did was not technically illegal, many think it should be. Defensive linemen are subject to chop blocks, a block where an offensive lineman takes out the lineman's knees after his initial assignment, but are not protected from the same block when it comes from a offensive linemen double teaming him. Why aren't defensive backs protected from wide receivers crashing their helmets into their knees?

The NFL is clearly concerned about its most important players being injured: the quarterbacks. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are the faces of the league and some of the most recognizable figures in sports worldwide. So much as touching the quarterback's helmet is an automatic 15-yard penalty—even if you so much as graze him with your hand. They're given special rules to prevent injury while passing, and even while running the football. 

It's not like they aren't trying to crack down on injuries completely. The NFL has rightly been trying to protect wide receivers from the vicious hits that safeties and cornerbacks are able to lay on defenseless players. Anyone who saw Austin Collie or DeSean Jackson get carted off last year would agree that something needed to be done. 

The NFL just seems to have its own objective. Wide receivers are one of the most glorified positions in all of football. They catch the ball, so the casual fan sees them as one of the most interesting, and therefore the NFL sees them as more valuable. 

Sadly, the NFL says it wants to protect its players, yet has claimed as early as 2004 that there was no link between concussions and playing football. How, I do not understand. The NFL has come under a lot of heat for that stance and has tried to make it up by enacting the "88 plan." This plan was created because of John Mackey, a Hall of Fame tight end who started suffering signs of dementia and memory loss in the last five years, and it affords qualifying ex-players a stipend of $88,000 a year for medical bills. 

The NFL is taking measures to try and prevent concussions by changing the rules that allow a player to go back in the game. There are now rigorous tests a player must undergo during the week, and on the sidelines, to make sure he is fit to reenter the game. This may be bad for your fantasy team, but it's good for the lifelong health of players.

Yet, the NFL refuses to mandate players that wear helmets that are more resistant to concussions. One of the primary results of concussions on the field is from players not wearing mouth guards, or putting on their chin straps, which prevents the whiplash associated with the injury. These minor inconveniences could see concussions plummet during the year, yet the league has done nothing to address this. 

Clearly, there are many things the league has to do in order to ever achieve its desire for an 18-game season. With the incredible rigor of a 16-game season, 18 games would surely only increase injuries across the board and reduce the length of players' careers. Eliminating two-a-day practices and limiting the number of padded practices to 14 this offseason was a big step forward, but until the game is changed to protect all of the NFL's players in the past, present and future, an 18-game season is not only impossible but irresponsible. 

The hypocritical stance the NFL takes with players faking injuries is amplified a thousand times by its inability to actually protect the players. As long as the glaring inconsistencies exist the league will come under fire, and rightfully so.