When it comes to disclosing injury information, the NFL has struggled at times to strike the right balance. To create a sense of transparency (and in turn to discourage gamblers from pursuing inside information by cozying up to players, coaches, and other team employees), the NFL has developed an injury-reporting system far more complex than, for example, hockey’s upper-body/lower-body shell game. But the individual NFL teams would prefer to keep as much of that information as secret as possible, to protect players from being targeted and to achieve a strategic edge.
Caught in the middle are the players, who often find themselves being criticized for playing poorly when trying to play through an injury that was either unknown or understated.