The NFL had to feel a bit embarrassed when it came out that Tom Brady played the entire 2020 season with a torn MCL. Not because Brady won the Super Bowl anyway, but because nobody knew about it despite the NFL’s injury reporting requirements.
The league requires teams to put any player with “a significant or noteworthy injury” on the practice report, even if the player fully practices or expects to play in the next game. The Buccaneers never publicly made note of Brady’s knee injury, even though a torn MCL would qualify as significant under pretty much any definition.
According to Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk, the league privately acknowledges that it must reconsider the potential consequences for teams that either hide or fake injuries. Beyond the Brady situation, the league is privately aware of multiple occasions in which injuries were not properly reported, and there were also two instances where the league identified players faking injuries during games. Florio adds that, in order to prevent further issues, the NFL acknowledges that it may have to more aggressively enforce existing rules and strengthen penalties for those who violate them.
In the past, the league has handed out significant fines to teams that don’t properly report notable injuries. However, that clearly hasn’t acted as enough of a deterrent to stop situations like the Brady one. Teams may simply feel that keeping an opponent in the dark — and ensuring that other teams can’t target an injury even if the player does play — is worth more than any punishment the league might hand down.
Why does the NFL care? The increasing legalization of sports betting is a significant factor. If some gamblers have inside information that the public doesn’t have, it becomes a significant problem, especially if access to that information is exploited by those who possess it.
As it stands, the league may have no choice but to look into whether the Buccaneers violated the rules in keeping quiet publicly about Brady’s injury. Whether that leads to some sort of penalty is yet to be seen.
