Maybe the NFL isn’t out to stick it to the Seahawks, after all.
At least not this time.
The league is not going to fine, take away a draft choice or punish the Seahawks in any way after the team did not properly report Richard Sherman’s knee injury this past season, a source with knowledge of the investigation confirmed to The News Tribune on Tuesday.
The NFL found that the team violated the league’s injury report policy by not including the Pro Bowl cornerback’s knee injury on Seattle’s practice reports following his sprained medial collateral ligament, which head coach Pete Carroll revealed after the season. But league investigators found the violation to be the result of “a misinterpretation of the policy’s reporting requirements.”
Fox Sports first reported the warning rather than punishment.
Two days after Seattle’s 2017 season ended last month Carroll disclosed Sherman’s “significant” injury without being asked. Though Sherman played in every game this past season — and even last month’s Pro Bowl — that did not free the Seahawks from being required to list the knee injury.
The source told the TNT that if the Seahawks have any future violations of the injury report policy, the league will couple it with this violation to determine discipline.
The NFL was considering taking away a second-round draft choice from the Seahawks. Seattle is already minus a fifth-round pick in April’s draft for a third violation of too much hitting in what are supposed to be non-contract organized team activities.
Sherman’s knee injury never showed up on any of the team’s daily practice reports, nor on injury reports, which are due to the league 48 hours before each game. Sherman missed one practice in six of the last seven game weeks to end the season. The team listed the reason for those absences as “NIR.” That stands for “not injury related.”
In their cooperation with the league’s fourth investigation of the team in six years for potential violations of team rules, the Seahawks emphasized Sherman didn’t miss a game and even played in the Pro Bowl late last month. They told the league Sherman missed those practices as part of the team’s plan to rest veterans during the season.
Two other Seahawks Pro Bowl players, tight end Jimmy Graham and defensive end Michael Bennett, regularly got practices off this past season.
That argument won.
“Honestly, I didn’t realize we hadn’t revealed it,” Carroll said two days after Seattle lost at Atlanta in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. “I don’t even remember what game it was (that Sherman got hurt), it was somewhere in the middle … I don’t know.
“He was fine about it. He didn’t miss anything.”
Carroll mentioned on Jan. 16 that Sherman played with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his knee while describing how difficult a season it was for the three-time All-Pro.
So what was the big deal?
Before the 2016 season began, the NFL sent to each of its 32 teams a reminder of its policies on official injury reports. In it is this subsection for practice reports: “The Practice Report provides clubs and fans with an accurate description of a player’s injury status and how much he participated in practice during the week. If any player has a significant or noteworthy injury, it must be listed on the practice report, even if he fully participates in practice and the team expects that he will play in the team’s next game. This is especially important for key players whose injuries may be covered extensively by the media.”
The league has precedents of at least fining teams for not disclosing injuries, particularly when it involves star players. In 2009, the NFL fined the New York Jets $125,000 for not reporting an injury to quarterback Brett Favre.
Asked why Sherman’s injury never showed up on a practice report, Carroll said last month: “I don’t know. I’m feeling like I screwed that up with not telling you that because that happened, but he was OK. So I don’t know. He never missed anything, which is probably why.”
That’s the tack the Seahawks kept in cooperating with the league.
The NFL previously investigated the Seahawks in 2012, 2014 and 2016, all for alleged violations of limits on player contact during spring minicamps. All three times the league fined Seattle after finding the team broke NFL rules. In September, the league fined the Seahawks $400,000, Carroll $200,000, and took away a fifth-round draft choice this year and three of its OTA/minicamp practices this spring.
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