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SHOULD NFL INQUIRE INTO FAULK INJURY SITUATION?
By CHARLES JAY, Editor/Publisher, TotalAction.com
November 10, 2000

It's a sticky proposition, but perhaps the NFL needs to take a quick look into the circumstances surrounding Marshall Faulk's absence from last week's St. Louis Rams game against the Carolina Panthers. If you recall, Faulk was listed as questionable through Sunday, yet was yanked from the lineup about an hour before the start of the Sunday night game, with a knee injury that, as it turns out, needs arthroscopic surgery.

There's really nothing wrong with that; after all, if a guy can't play, he can't play. The problem involves the extremely short notice given for this major change in personnel. You see, whether the NFL wants to face up to it or not, people are betting on this football game, and people are booking the game. And I would dare say most, if not all, of the people who were booking the game - legally - in the Nevada sportsbooks did not have the information that Faulk was not playing. Hank Goldberg reported on ESPN's "SportsCenter" early this week that some of the sportsbook managers in Las Vegas were calling him to find out whether ESPN was apprised of the injury at any time. Goldberg said ESPN was not. Evidently, such information was not available until after the Rams took the field.

That's disturbing.

In a situation like that, it's always going to be possible for SOMEONE to have that kind of info, and for that person to use it to make a "score". And in this circumstance, or circumstances similar to it, someone could have been in a perfect position to exploit it.

Please do not interpret this to mean that Mike Martz or anyone on his staff did anything wrong. I'm sure they didn't. I'm sure there was nothing else they could do, under the circumstances.

I'm really not talking about people like that. I'm talking about clubhouse personnel, security people, stadium employees, even reporters (yes, some of them bet too). In short, anybody with no connection to the team who might have been aware of this late information, which was huge, considering we're talking about the likely MVP front-runner.

You don't want to INVITE problems. You don't want to INVITE questions. You don't want to give the appearance that there was very important information that was kept semi-private until the last possible moment. Because if something unnatural happens in the betting, and it's traced back to this, you're going to see some real problems in the future.

Why should the NFL care about bookmakers and betting patterns? I'll tell you why - because it potentially impacts the intergrity of the game. This reminds me, a little bit, of a situation that happened a number of years ago when Pat Riley was coaching the Los Angeles Lakers. His team had clinched the conference championship and home court advantage, and was scheduled for a relatively meaningless season finale against the Portland Trail Blazers. I don't remember all the details, but Riley held three starters, including Magic Johnson and James Worthy, out of that game, understandable enough with the playoffs upcoming. Unfortunately, he didn't let anyone know about it. And because the players were not injured, it didn't show up on a league injury report.

Naturally, it created a problem, because the absence of those Laker starters was a material factor in the game, leaving a situation wide-open for someone to exploit. Riley was reprimanded and fined by the league, and rightly so.

Why do you think the NFL, NBA, and Major league Baseball have injury reports? Because ALL information regarding people who may not play in games should be readily available to EVERYONE. When you do not disclose information, you create a situation where someone may have it while others do not. Forget about it being unfair - it leaves open the possibility of scandal - the appearance of impropriety. And as long as that appearance exists, steps have to be taken to obviate it.

What the NFL should do is to find out how long it was known that Faulk was not going to play, whether he should have been re-classified on the injury report prior to Sunday, and whether information about the real status of the injury could have fallen into the hands of an "outsider" prior to it being made commonly available.

Then they need to counsel all teams on the importance of being open with their information. They need to, for the sake of their own integrity.

That's my opinion.