Cromartie Says Players Might Need To “Speak Up For Ourselves” On Hidden Injuries

NFL teams that have insisted on player secrecy regarding the extent of injuries might need to revisit the overall strategy. It’s not enough to tell the players to zip their lips during the season; the teams need to do a better job of getting them to continue to clam up after the season has ended. This year, four players have revealed since the year ended that they were far more injured than the team’s injury reports suggested. The first was former Jets quarterback Brett Favre, who identified an arm injury that never had been disclosed by the team after a five-game crash-and-burn to end the campaign. More recently, Pats running back Laurence Maroney revealed that he played with a broken bone in his shoulder, even though he hadn’t been listed on the injury report for his last game before landing on injured reserve. Then, Packers safety Atari Bigby ‘fessed up regarding the extent to which his ankle had been effed up in 2008. The latest player to blab on a post hoc basis is Chargers cornerback Antonio Cromartie, who played most of the year with a hip injury about which he said nothing. “If, as players, we feel like we can play when we’re hurt, we’ve still got to stick up for ourselves,” Cromartie recently told Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports. “We’ve given the organization all we can, and at the same time, they’ve got to give it back. This league is, ‘What can you do for me now?’ and we all have a name to protect. If the team’s not going to speak up for us, it’s for us as players to speak up for ourselves.” Of course, players who choose to do so during the season will be doing so at their own peril. Guys who don’t do what the team asks tend to have a harder time getting what they want, such money or playing time or, at some point, continued employment. So this needs to be, in our view, an issue for the upcoming labor negotiations. The union needs to secure for the players an absolute right to talk openly and honestly about their health, with strong penalties applicable to any retaliation from the team. And then enough players need to take advantage of that right to dilute the potential benefits of holding a grudge against those players who opt for candor. Until then, teams should explain to the players who are inclined to keep their mouths shut that discretion should extend beyond the last game of the season.