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It’s not easy to outdo himself after six Super Bowl wins, but Tom Brady definitely managed to do it in the 2020 season and that’s because not only did he end up winning his seventh Lombardi Trophy, but he did so during a year where he played the whole season with a ripped MCL.
The man won a Super Bowl by playing on one leg!
While it will look legendary on Brady’s resume, it’s not necessarily a good thing for the Buccaneers that this injury news came out on Thursday and that’s because it could put them in hot water with the NFL.
The problem for the Buccaneers is that if Brady played all season with an MCL tear, then he should have been on the team’s injury report every week during the season. The NFL has a specific rule that covers this exact situation and the rule is pretty clear.
Extract from the league manual:
“All players with reportable injuries must be listed on the training report, even if the player performs all the reps in training, and even if the team is certain they will play in the upcoming game. This is especially true for key players. “
The italicized portion of the above quote is literally UNDERLINED in the league operations manual. The fact that the NFL also specifically mentions that all “key” players should be on the report is something that will make it difficult for the Buccaneers to pull off.
If a team violates the NFL injury reporting policy, the commissioner has the power to issue several different penalties, including the suspension of anyone involved.
“A violation of the policy may result in disciplinary action from the commissioner, which may include a fine for the club involved, fines or suspensions of individuals involved, as well as the possible forfeiture of draft picks by the club involved,” said the league rules.
Imagine how crazy things would get if Roger Goodell decided to suspend Brady for the second time in five years.
When asked if the Buccaneers would be punished for Brady’s predicament, the NFL made no comment to Pro Football Talk. The “no comment” doesn’t mean the Buccaneers won’t be punished. This probably means the NFL will look into the situation. For the Buccaneers, it will be nearly impossible to deny that Brady played injured, especially because he admitted it last month.
Brady was actually asked about his knee injury at the minicamp in June and although he never admitted how serious it was, he admitted it had bothered him since April 2020.
“It’s an injury that I’ve really suffered since April, last May,” Brady said. “I knew I should do something at the end of the [2020 season], and glad we did. It was probably something that definitely needed to be done and there was a great result so I’m very happy about it. I feel like I will be able to do different things this year than I was able to do last year. “
The NFL has proven it will punish teams for hiding injuries, especially in high-profile situations. After hiding an injury to Brett Favre during the 2008 season, the Jets were fined $ 125,000.
In a more recent situation, the Steelers were fined $ 100,000 in 2019 – $ 75,000 for the team and $ 25,000 for Mike Tomlin – for failing to accurately list Ben Roethlisberger on their injury report. of Week 2. Big Ben missed a pre-game practice with an elbow injury, but the Steelers never mentioned the injury. Instead, they listed his absence as the veterans’ day of rest. The NFL discovered the injury after Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph noted Roethlisberger was suffering from elbow pain ahead of Pittsburgh’s Week 2 game against Seattle. Big Ben ended up suffering from an elbow injury in the game that caused him to miss the rest of the season.
Roethlisberger’s situation only involved a week of training reports and the Steelers were still hit with a major fine, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Tampa Bay was hit by something similar or maybe even bigger, since the Buccaneers went an entire year without acknowledging Brady’s injury on their training reports.
The NFL doesn’t have a long history of punishing teams for practice report violations, but like Favre and Big Ben, this is such a high-profile case that the league might end up deciding to make an example. of the Buccaneers.
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