Another year, another player injury that previously had been hidden comes to light. And the league likely will do nothing about it.
Via David Moore of the Dallas Morning News, Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant disclosed to reporters on Wednesday that he’s been dealing with an injury for weeks. Bryant said he was “surprised” no one knew about the injury, which has lingered since early November.
Here’s why no one knew about the injury: The injury has never appeared on the injury report.
The injury also didn’t appear on Wednesday’s injury report. Although Bryant has practiced and played every game, players who fully participate in practice despite an injury routinely are listed as having an injury.
The next question is what will the league do about it? Based upon what the league did (more accurately, didn’t do) to the Seahawks last year for hiding a knee injury to Richard Sherman and to the Steelers last year for hiding a hernia suffered in the wild-card round by Le’Veon Bell, don’t expect anything to happen.
Why does the league do nothing when a team violates the injury-reporting rules? Possibly because the league knows that they’d be sliding down a rabbit hole from which they’d never emerge, if they begin aggressively investigating and enforcing actual or suspended violations of the injury policy.