I’ve been meaning to post this all year. Every Friday we put together a supplement for the Fantasy Index Weekly – check the weather, adjust for developments and check the injury reports for each team. That involves visiting the websites of each of the 32 teams – and a handful of them stand out.
A lot of coaches or teams tend to be paranoid about injury information – afraid of giving opponents an edge, apparently. So while the league requires each team to release an injury report, some make some effort to be less helpful. Some teams, for example, will sometimes oversaturate their report, listing half the roster as injured (trying to hide the injured players amongst healthy ones). Others will under report, avoiding mention of key injuries. The Steelers went this route in the AFC Championship last year, making no mention of LeVeon Bell’s groin injury.
But as I bounce from site to site each week, three teams stand out more than the others.
New England Patriots: Every team in the league has a “team” area of the website, and it’s there that you drag and drop to find the required injury report. That’s what everyone has settled on (and it probably started with a league memo).
Then there are the Patriots. They don’t include their injury report in the “team” section. They’ve got theirs in the “news” section. Why, I have no idea. Maybe they logically feel it belongs there. Or maybe Bill Belichick or somebody else is looking for an edge – hoping that some won’t be able to find the information in the team section.
Yes, the Patriots have gotten into my head to the level that I’m wondering if they’re intentionally messing with us on the injury report.
Miami Dolphins: The Dolphins have their injury report in the correct area, but it hasn’t been updated since Wednesday of Week 3. Either they’re trying to limit the spread of their injury information or they simply can’t get their shit together. Judging by what they’ve been putting on the field in recent years, probably the latter.
Karl the Intern, apparently, is supposed to post that info on the website. But they cut his hours in half, and he’s only been coming in on Saturdays, Sundays and Monday.
Seattle Seahawks: There’s a participation portion of the injury report, and the Seahawks usually submit their paperwork on Friday with “Practice Not Complete.” That’s a convenient way of making it more difficult to tell where a player is at.
Jimmy Graham, for example, was “questionable” a few weeks back with an ankle injury and hadn’t practiced at all on Wednesday or Thursday. If Graham also sat out on Friday, everyone would be leery of using him. If he practiced fully on Friday, he would seemingly be good to go. But the Seahawks were able to delay people knowing about him by hiding behind the “Practice Not Complete” tag.
The Seahawks, of course, are on the West Coast – 3 hours behind. Most teams are submitting their reports at 4 p.m., while the Seahawks have a 1 p.m. deadline. But the 49ers, Raiders, Rams and Chargers are all in the time zone, and none of them consistently play the “Practice Not Complete” card.
Seems like the Seahawks are either practicing later in the day (not likely), have a strong desire to submit a full and accurate report (not likely) or are looking for a little edge in the injury information game (possible).
Not a huge deal with any of these teams. The information gets out – there’s a variety of sources. But I roll my eyes when those teams go by every week.
—Ian Allan