After Rams running back Steven Jackson left Sunday’s win over the Redskins in the second quarter, it widely was believed that he’d been benched for spiking the football in frustration and drawing a 15-yard penalty.
After the game, coach Jeff Fisher said that Jackson has an injured groin, but that he could have re-entered the game.
Regardless of whether Jackson could have returned to the game, he has now missed two days of practice.
“He did not practice today and we’ll have him on the injury report for you on Friday,” Fisher told the media on Thursday.
Fisher added that he doesn’t have a policy that requires a player to practice in order to play. Jackson said he has played with worse injuries.
“I’m not 100 percent, but day-to-day,” Jackson said. “The injury is not as significant as we once thought it was and we’re just going to go from there. I still have the three days before the game, I believe. Each and every day buys me time.”
It’d be interesting to know when the Rams specifically thought the injury was significant. The fact that the Rams gave no in-game injury update on Jackson could pique the league’s interest in that regard, too.
Nine years ago, former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan was fined for reporting during a game that quarterback Jake Plummer had left with a concussion when, in reality, Plummer had a separated shoulder. Shanahan said at the time that he lied in order to conceal the true nature of the injury from the Chargers, in the event the team’s other quarterback (Steve Beuerlein) had gotten injured, forcing Plummer back into the game. (And, yes, in 2003 a guy could re-enter a game with a concussion.)
“To share with somebody that Jake has a separated shoulder and could not throw and our quarterback goes down, we have a good chance to lose the football game,” Shanahan said at the time.
In this case, with Shanahan on the other sideline, Fisher likely didn’t want the Redskins to think that Jackson was injured in any way, in the event that he had to re-enter the game. And despite the friendship between Shanahan and Fisher, Shanahan should be asking 345 Park Avenue whether Fisher will be making the same involuntary contribution to the NFL’s charities that Shanahan once did.