What’s wrong with faking it?
Why the uproar about faking injuries? Is this the first time anyone has noticed a defense trying to regain control over the rhythm of a game? I’m curious why attention is being brought to this now? (A great article that points out past examples)
(courtesy cbssports.com)
Jim Rome burned on the Giants fake injuries for a while on his radio show Wednesday. Rome implied that it’s pathetic for a coach to ask his players to feign an injury. He said that only a “0-7 high school football coach” would do something like that. Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com came up with a plan to punish teams suspected of faking an injury. His suggestion:
“The league should expand the rule book to strip a time out from any team with a defensive player who is injured while the opposing offense is using a no-huddle attack. No questions asked, no fingers pointed. If a guy is injured on defense while defending against a no-huddle offense, his team loses a time out.”
Mr. Florio, there’s no way the NFL could do that. In a game that is so violent are you really going to punish a guy when he tells you he’s hurt? Are you really going to accuse a man who has been throwing his body full speed into other men that he’s “faking that cramp?’ Sure, there’s a chance he could be faking, but is it really a big deal? If a quarterback gets huffy over the fact that the defense is trying to slow down their no huddle trickery then so be it. That’s part of the game.
To imply that a coach has urged a player to fake an injury is a bit presumptuous. A player has free will on the field. A coach can only do so much. Do you blame a coach for a helmet-to-helmet hit? A coach can encourage a player to do something but he can’t make him do anything. That goes for the good and the bad.
The NFL sent out a memo Wednesday morning threatening repercussions to players/teams faking injuries. NFL, please. You don’t have to respond to everything that the media decides to turn into a controversy. I’m curious if a memo was sent out in 2003 when Patriot’s Willie McGinest had his famous flop against Peyton Manning’s no huddle effort?
Wilie McGinest (projo.com)
Exploiting loopholes to gain an advantage is not a new strategy in professional football. Whether that’s:
-reading a play as it’s being called
-conferring with coaches or players who used to be with the opposing team for inside tips
-rattling the opposing team on the line
-drawing an offsides penalty to get the first down
-taking a knee or spiking the ball to avoid calling a play
-quick offensive substitutions in the no huddle offense that don’t allow a defense to also substitute
There are several “tactics” used in this game that could walk the line of cheating. Are we going to pick every one of them apart? There is actual cheating (i.e. stealing another team’s playbook, videotaping another team’s practice); and then there is the strategy of the game. If you want to say that a defensive player going down during a no huddle offensive drive is cheating then you need to look closely at all the other “tactics” teams use to regain control of the game.
Obviously if players started dropping like flies on every play something would need to be done. I don’t think that will ever happen; I don’t think anyone wants to drastically slow down the game.
2 Comments for What’s wrong with faking it?
I think the NFL is well aware that enforcing this penalty will be particularly hard.
I think they mainly did it to put out some fear to teams that really make this practice a fixture of their gameplan. (Whether it will work or not I do not know, though I have noticed less of it since the announcement was made – but that is a completely unscientific study)
I was watching that Giants game, and it was getting pretty ridiculous. Kind of like a younger brother cheating, or disrupting a game because they were physically/mentally outmatched.
I agree with your overall sentiment though, it struck me as a bit ludicrous (and unenforceable) when the NFL made the announcement.
Soccer has dealt with divers since the game’s inception, only the repercussions are even more severe. Take a well-timed flop in the penalty box, and you get to line up for a penalty kick — a near-certain score.
The art of feigned injury is so storied in the sport that there’s even a Youtube video mocking the Italian team’s legendary swan dives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ4vJ0BDhZU
There is no penalty for a feigned injury because it is exceptionally difficult to prove. When contact is made, judging its effect to the injuree is impossible. Even instant replay — if it were deigned usable to review injuries — would often fail to demonstrate conclusive evidence of fakery, except in those rare cases where the contact itself is imaginary.
And if faking is un-regulatable in soccer, it is 100x more so in football, where serious physical contact is not only more frequent, it is expected to occur on every single play.