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Surprise fines from the NFL have hit the Atlanta Falcons and their head coach, Arthur Smith, to the tune of $75,000 and $25,000, respectively. According to the league, this was due to “violating the NFL Injury Report Policy” in relation to running back Bijan Robinson’s status before their Week 7 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Robinson’s involvement in the game was limited despite not being on the team’s injury report. This raised questions about why he saw such little playing time.
Smith initially commented that Robinson “just not feeling all that great” during a halftime interview. However, he later insisted there was “nothing to it.” Robinson himself explained that a headache he had the night before worsened into Sunday.
“I was feeling weird,” said Robinson, via the team. “I woke up, just completely out of it. I tried to take medicine so I could be good for the game. But my head was hurting. Bad. I don’t know what was going on. I tried to go in pregame, but then coach Smith said, ‘We’ll be all right. Let’s get you right.'”
Smith responded to the situation on Friday:
“What I will give the league a lot of credit for is there are a lot of things, when you’re going through the injury report, and clearly we understood their point of view, but they also understood our point of view, too, which is why it wasn’t some contentious battle. As you go through that, just full transparency, there’s an inquiry and usually you have to respond with a letter – so, it’s not like it’s some court case that you’re sitting in – it wasn’t a lot of time spent, just: Here’s how we interpreted it, here’s our intent, nothing was done to try to game anything like that. I understood their point of view, so lesson learned there. It was a good conversation, and there are probably a lot of conversations that are going to be had in the spring. That’s kind of where we ended it.
“Again, lesson learned, and we completely understand their position. I think they understood where we were coming from. So, that’s what ended up happening.”
The NFL is stringent about injury transparency. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike Tomlin were fined in 2019 due to an inaccurate report on quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and more recently, the Cincinnati Bengals cleared an investigation regarding the status of quarterback Joe Burrow.
Burrow was the center of attention after grabbing his wrist in pain during a game earlier this season. Questions circulated around a video showing him wearing a brace on his right hand, which the Bengals promptly posted and deleted. Burrow eventually spoke up, dispelling any concerns about the brace,