statement issued by the Eagles<\/a> on Thursday made it clear that the team was aware of the situation, and that the clot was revealed by an ultrasound examination performed after the team arrived in London. \u201cThroughout our time in London and this week, we have remained in communication with the league office regarding the matter,\u201d the Eagles said.<\/p>\nGiven that the Eagles specifically said the team had \u201cremained in communication with the league office,\u201d we asked the league office whether it had anything to add \u2014 specifically as to the question of why Hurts\u2019s status for the game wasn\u2019t changed at any time to \u201cquestionable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team was in contact with the league throughout the process, including the morning of the game,\u201d an NFL spokesperson said via email on Friday morning. \u201cA team would need to make a public announcement immediately if there was any question as to his availability or if he would be impacted in any way. That was not the case here. We would not want a team to list a player as \u2018questionable\u2019 on gameday morning when the team knows with 100 percent certainty that he will play in the game. . . . Hurts played 100 percent of the snaps on offense during the game and there was no issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s fine, but wasn\u2019t there, at some point, a question as to Hurts\u2019s availability? From the moment it was decided to seek an ultrasound to the moment that the doctors reviewed and analyzed the results, there was an obvious question as to the specific condition that had prompted Hurts to land on the injury report on Friday with a \u201ccalf\u201d injury, and whether that condition could keep him from playing.<\/p>\n
While Hurts played and took every snap, the league\u2019s current policy (with which the Eagles complied) creates a donut hole of inside information that isn\u2019t shared with the public. Hurts had a blood clot in his leg. That would be relevant information, especially as to anyone thinking about wagering hard-earned money through one of the sportsbooks that sponsor the NFL (and in which any NFL team owner can hold up to five-percent of the total equity).<\/p>\n
Whether the NFL revamps its injury-reporting rules on its own or whether the mandate comes from Congress or a regulatory agency, it seems inevitable that more will be required, one of these days. The official injury report from the Eagles didn\u2019t begin to paint the picture as to Hurts\u2019s true condition and status.<\/p>\n
Given that, between Saturday and Tuesday, the blood clot moved (making Hurts unavailable for Week 6), it would have been appropriate for the public to know that there was a possibility that, between Saturday and the start of Sunday\u2019s game, the blood clot could move or Hurts\u2019s condition could otherwise deteriorate.<\/p>\n
And, yes, it\u2019s possible to have genuine concern for the player\u2019s health while also pointing out the flaws in the current rules that work to the disadvantage of the betting public. Every injury necessarily represents a negative impact on the player\u2019s health. The question becomes whether or not there is sufficient transparency.<\/p>\n
The NFL first adopted an injury-reporting policy nearly 80 years ago to ensure that the \u201cpublic won\u2019t be in the dark<\/a>.\u201d If that motivation still exists, the league will raise the bar considerably as to the things that teams are required to disclose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The outside world (including anyone considering placing wagers on the game and\/or the specific player\u2019s performance) had no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-884642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}