It sounds like the Miami Dolphins could face an NFL investigation into their apparent failure to report an injury to star wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
Tyreek Hill was listed as questionable with a wrist injury ahead of Monday night’s showdown with the Los Angeles Chargers after he was limited in practice on Friday and Saturday with the injury. It was the first time he had been listed on the injury report all season as a result of the wrist injury. But there’s only one problem: he openly admitted that he had been dealing with the injury all year.
Before the game, ESPN’s Lisa Salters said that Hill told her he suffered the injury before the team’s season-opening game against the Washington Commanders.
“He said that it’s something that he’s really been dealing with all season long. He said it first started in training camp, but then he said it got re-aggravated when he was arrested right before the opening game of the season. He said he was taken to the ground by police — we remember seeing that video — and he said that that’s where the further damage was done. Tyreek told me that he’s had an MRI, and he said that the MRI has shown that he has a torn ligament. That he said he is playing through it.
“He said he’s just been quiet about it all season long,” she said. “So I said to him, ‘Do you not want me to say anything about it? Because you just told me all about it.’ He said, ‘It’s fine. It’s something that I have to deal with.’”
After the game, Hill confirmed that he has indeed dealt with the injury all season, saying he initially suffered the injury “against the Commanders Week 1” and that he “kind of like reaggravated it trying to block my tail off during the course of the year.”
This appears to be a blatant violation of the league’s injury reporting rules, which would have required the team to report Hill’s injury when it occurred. These rules are especially important with the league embracing legalized sports gambling as it gives prospective bettors all the information possible.
And as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk points out, the Dolphins will likely face an investigation as a result.
“The NFL launched the injury report in 1947 as a way to combat illegal gambling. Now that gambling is legal, there’s an even greater obligation to insist on transparency when it comes to the health of the players,” Florio wrote.
“Maybe Hill hid the injury from the Dolphins. Some players will do that, getting treatment and care on their own. If that’s what happened, let’s find out. The league should investigate — and the league should share the results.”
It would certainly be interesting to see the results of this potential investigation.
