Brett Favre’s decision to provide retroactive excuses for 2008’s New York swan dive has touched off a flurry of injury report hand-wringing.
What did the Jets know, when did they know it and why didn’t they tell the football-watching world about Favre’s torn biceps?
Jets G.M. Mike Tannenbaum already fell on his sword earlier today, saying, “As general manager of this team I should’ve handled that differently and listed him on the report. We didn’t because he wasn’t getting treatment every day and we knew he was going to play.”
That last phrase “we knew he was going to play” is the cover teams hide behind when it comes to reporting injuries.
But, sa NFL Director of Media Relations Michael Signora related to us in an email, that ain’t good enough.
“With regard to the policy, it states that ‘all players with significant or noteworthy injuries must be listed on the report even if the player takes all the reps in practice and even if the team is certain that he will play in the upcoming game. This is especially true of key players and those players whose injuries have been covered extensively by the media. . . . The intent of the policy is to provide a full and complete rendering of player availability.”
Signora added that the case of Patriots running back Laurence Maroney was investigated and the Patriots did not violate the policy.