After NY Giants’ Shameful Spectacle, NFL Decides to Crack Down on Fake Injuries

With the St. Louis Rams marching toward the end zone, the New York Giants had to act fast. Blitz? Pass coverage? Fake an injury? Two Giants players, Deon Grant and Jacquian Williams simultaneously fell to the field with “cramps” to draw an injury timeout.

Here’s a video of the fake injuries.

But before football turns into futbol, the NFL has issued a statement warning teams and players that they will be punished if they get caught faking an injury.

The NFL said in a memo:

“Going forward, be advised that should the league office determine that there is reasonable cause, all those suspected of being involved in faking injuries will be summoned promptly to this office. Those found to be violators will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action for conduct detrimental to the game.

“We have been fortunate that teams and players have consistently complied with the spirit of the rule over the years and this has not been an issue for the NFL. We are determined to take all necessary steps to ensure that it does not become an issue.”

According to USA Today, the NFL will issue fines, suspensions, and could even take away draft picks if a team is caught coaching a player to fake an injury.

Deon Grant said that the Giants didn’t fake any injuries on Monday night, but Rams’ QB Sam Bradford disagrees. Bradford said:

“I was pretty upset, they couldn’t get subbed, they couldn’t line up… Someone said, ‘someone go down, someone go down,’ so someone just went down and grabbed a cramp, and I was pretty frustrated about that.”

The NFL will probably have a tough time deciding which injuries are fake and which ones are real, but the memo was more of a warning than anything else. Do you think faking injuries is a common practice in the NFL? Will teams will listen to the warning and stop? Or will we continue to see “cramps” this season?