This week, Atlanta Falcons rookie running back Bijan Robinson was surprisingly limited during the team’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a result of an illness he began feeling on Saturday night. Nobody outside of the Falcons knew about this until after the game, and it sounds like there’s a chance the Falcons could be punished for failing to disclose the illness.
According to a report from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the NFL is going to “follow up with the club” after the Falcons failed to notify the Buccaneers or anyone else of the illness that would sideline him for most of the game. And as Florio points out, there’s good reason why the Falcons could face some punishment for that.
“There’s a clear strategic incentive in such situations to say nothing. It’s for the NFL to create a disincentive strong enough to deter teams from keeping quiet. Otherwise, teams that are trying to win football games (especially if/when the coach of the team thinks he might be approaching the hot seat) will choose to say nothing and regard the penalty as a cost of doing business they way in which the team chooses to do so,” Florio wrote for Pro Football Talk.
Florio thinks there should be a real punishment for failing to disclose this information to dissuade teams from withholding information in the future.
“The punishment must exceed the perceived or actual benefit the Falcons got from keeping the Bucs in the dark about Robinson. And, surely, the Falcons saw a benefit. Otherwise, they would have done the right thing and informed the league that Robinson was ill, and that it might affect his availability. Because he was, and it did,” Florio wrote.
We’ll have to see what the league chooses to do.
