Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill missed practice with the team on Friday and Saturday and was listed as questionable for Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Rams with a wrist injury. But it appears that the Dolphins violated an important NFL rule regarding his injury.
Ahead of Monday night’s game, ESPN’s Lisa Salters revealed that Tyreek Hill has actually been dealing with this writs injury all season long and has “just been quiet about it.”
“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.”
Needless to say, it’s a pretty clear violation of NFL rules that Hill and the Dolphins did not disclose this injury.
As Mike Florio of the Pro Football Talk explains, this is a clear violation of the NFL’s injury reporting policy and it should be investigated by the league.
“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.”
We’ll have to see whether or not the league does indeed decide to investigate.
