When 4 p.m. arrives today, the Patriots will do what teams have been doing for almost 60 years -- submit an injury report to NFL headquarters, and in turn, disseminate that information to the public.
The process garnered some extra attention last week when the Patriots and Colts ended up with a combined 39 players on their injury reports, meaning that 36 percent of the players potentially involved in the game were injured.
Of those 39 players, 36 were listed as having a 50-50 chance of playing.
Ridiculous?
Perhaps, but by the letter of the law, both teams simply were following NFL guidelines.
"The principal purpose of the injury report is to ensure there are no hidden injuries, or clubs hiding that players might not be available, and then that player ends up not being able to play and nobody knew about it," said Greg Aiello, the NFL's vice president of public relations.
Injury reports date back to the 1940s when NFL commissioner Bert Bell was dealing with the aftermath of the 1946 championship game between the New York Giants and Chicago Bears. As chronicled in Michael MacCambridge's book "America's Game," there were concerns at the time that two New York players, Merle Hapes and Frank Filchock, had been approached by gamblers and that the game could be part of a fix. Bell ended up suspending both players and reached the conclusion that pro football couldn't survive if it weren't based on absolute honesty. Starting in the 1947 season, Bell required all teams to publish a list of all injured players, saying such open information was crucial.
Aiello said the injury reports have been tweaked over time, but their main objective has been to serve the public interest and eliminate inside information that could be exploited, such as a player being paid for information regarding an injury to a teammate.
"The principal purpose of it is very important and is the premise on which Bert Bell first instituted them -- protecting the integrity of our league," Aiello said.
Whether the current system is successful in that regard is debatable, as teams often report injuries but aren't forthcoming on the severity of them because they might be protecting a competitive advantage.
Teams define players as either out, doubtful, questionable, or probable. Doubtful means there is at least a 75 percent chance that the player won't play, while questionable is 50-50, and probable is a virtual certainty that the player will be available for normal duty.
How have the Patriots' injury reports matched up with these numbers?
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