ESPN: NFL fines New York Jets and Eric Mangini

The NFL has issued a total of $125,000 in fines against the New York Jets and former coach Eric Mangini for the team's failure to list quarterback Brett Favre's arm problem on injury reports last season.

NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson levied fines of $75,000 against the team; $25,000 against general manager Mike Tannenbaum; and $25,000 against Mangini, now the coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Mangini coached the Jets during Favre's one season in New York before he was fired after the team collapsed down the stretch.

Last week, Tannenbaum admitted the club should have listed Favre, who had a torn biceps tendon, as "probable" on the injury report for the last four or five games. Favre said the Jets knew of the injury, which required offseason surgery.

4 months ago NESilver 19 comments 0 recs |

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Interesting

I was wondering where the league would end up on this. Glad to see that Goodell’s watchdog eyes extend to the rest of the league.

Keep the faith!

by Marima on Sep 16, 2009 3:33 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Cheaters

amirite?

I’m still waiting for the “Donovan McNabb Injured As Evil Eagles Try to Run Up The Score – Serves Them Right” storyline.

As Mr. Sloan always says, there is no "I" in team, but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "I" in meat pie. Anagram of meat is team... I don't know what he's talking about. --Shaun of the Dead

by JohnHannahRules on Sep 16, 2009 4:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

what cheaters! lets bring this up every day for the next several years

by sirpinochle on Sep 16, 2009 4:39 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

agreed. if they ever win any games from now on they are all tainted!

by bforce3 on Sep 16, 2009 4:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

by sirpinochle on Sep 16, 2009 4:59 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

as much as I love seeing Mangini get in trouble

Should a team really be penalized for not putting an injured player on their injury report? If a guy wants to tough it out and play through the hurt, props to him (I understand the Vegas implications of the injury report, I just wish it didn’t so obviously influence league policy).

If the league was structured such that teams could circumvent max player roster rules by using the injury report, I could see why stringent accuracy would be needed. But whether a guy is probable, questionable, or out, he’s still a spot on the roster (unless he goes onto IR, ending his season).

But I also readily admit I’m not versed in the rules well enough to really be making this argument. Does anyone have knowledge of any other reasons for the injury report strictness that I’m not aware of?

by jctsai12 on Sep 16, 2009 5:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Or just circumvent it by listing every scratch, niggle and ache

Boo-boo on the calf? List them under “leg” on the injury report and call them probable. Done! 53 probables per week.

by Comedic.Sans on Sep 16, 2009 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Should a team be fined $750K and docked a first round draft pick for doing something that everyone admits provides no competitive advantage and would be legal if they’d just done it from a slightly different location?

Now suppose another team doesn’t report that their starting QB is injured. The first week, they have a definite competitive advantage — if I know your QB can’t throw anymore, I’m going to put nine guys on the line of scrimmage all day and take away the running game.

The thing is, everyone knew by the end of the year that Favre was hurt and couldn’t throw effectively. But that first game? No one knew yet, and the Jets got a competitive advantage out of keeping that information secret.

So if the Pats should get an even stiffer fine and lose a draft pick for doing something that had no effect on anything simply because they broke a rule, the Jets should absolutely get punished for breaking a rule by doing something that at least had an effect on one game.

by RSNexile on Sep 16, 2009 6:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

of course

I thought the spygate nonsense was bull too :)

Relative to the tit-for-tat nature of penalizing, yes, I would agree that teams breaking established rules should get punished. My question was more challenging the logic of this particular rule. While I acknowledge that keeping the injury secret may have benefitted the Jets, I guess I don’t see that benefit as being outside the realm of fair play.

More simply, by hiding the injury, the Jets’ didn’t gain the ability to perform “better” on the field than they would had Favre been completely healthy. Instead, they hid a weakness that other teams could have exploited by preparing a more one-dimensional defense. They disguised the fact that they were going to play, in many ways, worse. That seems in-bounds to me.

by jctsai12 on Sep 16, 2009 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Wrong

The Jets absolutely did gain an advantage the first week Favre was hurt. Again, if you know the opposing QB is hurt and can’t throw effectively, you call different plays than you would if you don’t know. Once everyone knew Favre was hurt, the advantage is gone, but before everyone knew, the other teams couldn’t count on being able to force the Jets to beat them through the air. If they had known, they could have stuffed the box and taken away the running game.

In short, by hiding their disadvantage, they made sure that opponents could game plan to maximize their disadvantage, which left them with an advantage relative to what they would have had had they followed the rules.

That said, just like the rule in Spygate, it’s a stupid rule. But it’s still a rule, and if the NFL is going to punish the Pats so severely over something that got them no competitive advantage, it’s even more ridiculous that the Jets got off so comparably lightly.

by RSNexile on Sep 16, 2009 8:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

i don't disagree

That knowing whether the QB can throw or not helps you plan your defense. We’re in complete agreement there. I guess we simply will not see eye to eye on this, but I just do not feel that, as an opposing coach, you are entitled to that information. Why are the Jets, or any team for that matter, obligated to share information that assists the opposition with their own play-calling as a matter of fairness? That’s where the argument in favor of the existence of the rule breaks down for me. I’m not debating its enforcement; it’s clear to me that the Jets broke it.

And I fully agree with you that rules need to be enforced and consistently penalized. But that does not mean that certain rules, in this case both the injury report rule and the spygate rule, are necessarily based on sound principles.

I know on this board it’s tough to put aside the fact that it’s Mangini and the Jets or our outrage over the spygate penalties aside. But would our reaction be anywhere as strong if it had been the Pack doing this when Favre was there?

by jctsai12 on Sep 16, 2009 9:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Again, it's a stupid rule

I’d be all in favor of doing away with it. But if the rule is on the books and you break it, you deserve to get punished. And that goes double for breaking a rule in a way that gives you a competitive advantage, even if it shouldn’t be a rule in the first place.

by RSNexile on Sep 17, 2009 1:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

more specifically

I guess I disagree that hiding the injury is a “competitive advantage” rather than “hiding your competitive disadvantage.”

by jctsai12 on Sep 16, 2009 6:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Mangini did the exact same thing in the last couple of weeks at the Browns

Who’s the QB? I’m not telling. Why? So you have to prepare for both.

Same sort of logic – I’m not telling you who’s doing what. It must bring competitive advantages, or else he wouldn’t bother.

by Comedic.Sans on Sep 16, 2009 6:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, either that or he's an idiot

Or it could be both.

by RSNexile on Sep 16, 2009 8:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I feel sorry for Brady Quinn

Imagine the awkward phone call to your parents, on the day you’re supposed to be ridiculously happy about earning a starter’s berth. “Brady, are you going to be playing?” “No comment, mother. Mangini will beat me.”

by Comedic.Sans on Sep 16, 2009 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, they should be penalized.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In fact, I specifically remember a few years ago where the Patriots were going to play the Falcons and Belichick had tailored his gameplan specifically to stop Michael Vick (a mobile, scrambling QB). Instead, Vick never even suited up and we faced Matt Schaub, a pocket passer. He went on to throw for something like 300 yards and 3 TD’s, and we barely pulled out the victory 31-28. Belichick wasn’t too happy about it.

Despite the league’s failure to do anything about it then, that’s pretty much why they’ve changed the injury report so that you have to list whether players had full, limited, or no participation in practice as well as the probable, doubtful, and out designations two days before the game.

by NESilver on Sep 16, 2009 7:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm not clear

I’m not sure I quite get the rationale behind it. Whose interests is it protecting?

The injured player? It doesn’t stop players from playing injured, nor does it say how they’re used. It just says you have to tell everyone the player is injured. So it’s not for player protection (and may actually go against player protection, because if I knew Favre had a hurt arm, I might want to rough it up a little).

It’s not for the benefit of the opposition. Saying your guy is hurt doesn’t prevent from using him, or as the case may be, not using him. For instance, a team who carries two starting-quality QBs (say, the Falcons when they had Vick and Schaub) may choose to bench one on game day to suit their strategy for that game. If the Falcons wish to burn cap room on multiple QBs, that’s their prerogative. As far as I know, there’s no mandatory declaration of a depth-chart on game day; listing injuries for active players doesn’t do anything towards clearing it up. If they don’t have to declare starters and stick to them to allow the opposition to plan, why should they declare who’s hurt?

It’s not for the benefit of the average audience. If a guy is hurt, he might perform slightly worse. That’s going to happen irrespective of whether they’ve told the world he’s hurt or not. Part of the intrigue of watching sport is to see who gets hurt, how guys who are carrying injuries cope, watching amazing displays of mental toughness, and the like. None of this is influenced one way or the other if there’s a press statement saying a guy is hurt or not.

The only benefit of the system that I can see is for bookies and/or fantasty football players. They want to know who’s injured, so they can place their respective bets/wagers/whatever. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t think football rules were meant to be geared to suit Vegas.

by Comedic.Sans on Sep 16, 2009 8:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

that's where I'm coming from

and you were able to articulate it far more effectively than me (particularly your description in your third paragraph about cap room and rosters). I should just be quiet and talk through you :)

by jctsai12 on Sep 16, 2009 9:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs