NFL Championship: History of the New York Giants

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Intro: In 1946 two members of the New York Giants were found associating with gamblers, trying to fix the NFL Championship Game. These members were suspended and in 1947 the NFL introduced their form of prevention, the injury report (Merritt). Every week NFL coaches have to list their injured players on the NFL Injury Report. Each player has to be listed as either “doubtful,” “questionable,” or “probable” to play that weekend. What a lot of people don’t know is that an ample amount of teams are lying on these reports. By skewing the truth on their player’s injuries it gives that team an advantage. Whether the coaches are putting healthy players on the list, injured players not on the list, or just lying about the severity of the injury, it is all affecting the teams and the fans. I have addressed the problems with the NFL injury report and focused my research on the integrity of the teams and their purpose for lying, how much lying is really going on, and the link between the injury report, the NFL, and gambling.
Topic: The NFL injury report was initially made to make information about player’s injuries available to the public. This was meant to discourage gamblers from getting close to players for the sole purpose of gaining inside information. This decision ultimately protected the players from getting involved in gambling but also added new issues. There are many inaccuracies found in the NFL injury report. By letting the public know which players are hurt and where they are hurt, opposing teams are using this to their advantage. As predicted, coaches are going to try to obscure their player’s health to mess with their opponents game plan, while at the same time still following the guidelines of the NFL injury report regulat...

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...s' tendon, this sent Browns fans and gamblers into frenzy. The Bears lost 24-0. Gamblers lost a large sum of money that day and caused a big uproar. Back then, teams were required only to report to the league players they knew ahead of time would not be playing. “At that time, the league was tracing point spreads on games, and when there was a fluctuation, teams didn't want to be surprised,” said Don Weiss, then the league's public relations chief. “The Sayers episode gave (then-commissioner) Pete Rozelle the opportunity to put more teeth into the rule, to use the Bears as an example” (Isaacson). After this,

Conclusion: The inaccuracies in the NFL Injury Report are numerous. Teams are gaining different types of advantages by lying on the injury report. However, the amount of lying happening makes the Injury Report almost useless to everything it was created for.

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