The NFL currently isn’t looking the other way (as it usually does) when teams violate the letter and/or the spirit of the injury reporting rules.
According to Albert Breer of SI.com, the league fined the Miami Dolphins $30,000 and coach Adam Gase $15,000 for the handling of the Week Six injury report regarding quarterback Ryan Tannehill.
The fine came from the team’s listing of Tannehill as a full participant in practice on a Thursday, even though Tannehill missed some of the first-team reps.
Per Breer, the Dolphins and Gase weren’t fined for failing to downgrade Tannehill from questionable to doubtful due to a shoulder injury, in advance of the team’s decision to make him inactive for the game against the Bears. That would seem to the the more obvious -- and problematic -- violation of the rules.
The league recently fined the Raiders $20,000 for failing to downgrade guard Kelechi Osemele from questionable to out when he didn’t travel to L.A. for a game against the Chargers. The league also could be looking into whether the Cardinals violated the rules by failing to list former quarterback Sam Bradford on the injury report, given an ESPN report that he didn’t practice for five weeks due to a bone-on-bone condition in his knee.