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He's right. Among the examples cited were Jets quarterback Chad Pennington and the Patriots' Tom Brady.
In case you missed it, Pennington hurt his throwing shoulder during the 2004 season, missed three games, then returned for the end of the regular season and playoffs.
Although it was clear then that his arm strength was significantly reduced, the team -- primarily then-head coach Herman Edwards -- insisted Pennington's injury wasn't serious.
In fact, in December of 2004, Edwards told Newark Star-Ledger staffer Dave Hutchinson: "[Pennington is] sore. He's going to be sore for the rest of the year. That's the way it is. He's coming back off the injury that he had. It says a lot about him coming back and playing."
Which is fine. Except it was a big, fat lie.
Pennington wasn't coming off an injury, he was playing through one. A rather serious one at that: A torn rotator cuff.
But the Jets waited until after the season to reveal the extent of the injury -- and announcing the shoulder would have to be surgically repaired.
Last year, it was disclosed after the season that Brady had a sports hernia. Turns out he played with the problem for half the season.
While the hernia did not keep Brady from practicing or force him to miss any time, he did throw some passes uncharacteristically high as the season went on, prompting some to suggest the injury may have affected his release.
During the season Brady was listed on the weekly injury report from time to time.
He suffered what was reported by the team to be a shin injury diving into the end zone in Buffalo, Dec. 11. However, Brady wore a knee brace the next week against Tampa and for the rest of the season, indicating the injury was more likely to his knee, not shin.
He was also listed at times as having a shoulder injury, though never groin or hernia problems.
Still, as both the Boston Herald and Pro Football Weekly reported last February, coaches and teammates were well aware of Brady's injury, but it was never mentioned to the public until after the season.
"Yeah, of course," then-Patriot Willie McGinest said when asked if he knew Brady was playing hurt.
Interviewed during Super Bowl XL festivities in Detroit last year, McGinest was reminded that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb sat out the second half of the season with a similar injury.
"That's Donovan," McGinest said. "We're not talking about Donovan, we're talking about Tom. I didn't know how severe it was, but I knew it was bothering him. But you have guys who play with all types of injuries across the league and on our team. ..."
And apparently, not disclosing them is becoming a more regular occurrence. Those looking for evidence lending further credence to that belief need look no further than this past month.
It started when Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck revealed on Jan. 15, a day after the team's Divisional Playoff loss to the Bears, that he sustained non-displaced fractures of two fingers on his left (non-throwing) hand during a win Nov. 27 against Green Bay.
That was his first game back following a four-week absence from a sprained knee. "It wasn't fun," Hasselbeck said of the hand injury.
Hasselbeck finished the season with 18 interceptions in 14 games, after throwing just nine in 16 games last season -- which ended with the eight-year veteran starting the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl.
He played the final seven weeks of this season with a glove over a compression wrap and later tape on his left hand. He and the Seahawks remained coy on whether the hand was bruised or broken and whether it bothered him during games.
Head coach Mike Holmgren, however, admitted after the loss to Chicago the fingers were played a role in Hasselbeck's inconsistency. "I think that was part of it," he said.
Nonetheless, the team's official injury reports failed to suggest that was the case.
Granted, he opened Week 13 -- the week after the game in which the fingers were injured -- listed as questionable with an unspecified injury to his left hand.
But Hasselbeck was upgraded to probable on Friday of that week. And he wasn't included on any of the team's official injury reports for the rest of the season.
But there's more to this story than the fingers. ... We subsequently learned that Hasselbeck suffered a previously unreported torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder during a playoff game against Green Bay three years ago.
He did not need surgery then but apparently a hard shot taken in Chicago was enough to convince him to have the injury repaired. The surgery was performed on Thursday of that week (Jan. 18).
The Seahawks said the surgery "went well" and that Hasselbeck "should be ready for training camp at worst, if not before" July.
Sure. Unless they happen to be lying -- something they certainly have proven to be more than capable of this past season. ...
And finally, in the latest example, the Ravens disclosed on Tuesday that Jamal Lewis had surgery to remove bone spurs from his right ankle last week, correcting a problem that apparently bothered the veteran running back all season.
According to Baltimore Sun staffer Mike Preston, those bone spurs slowed Lewis noticeably during the 2006 season, especially in the first six games until he took injections to ease the pain.
Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome first spoke about the injury Tuesday, but Lewis told Preston that team officials knew of his ankle injury from the get go and that he had problems cutting and accelerating until Week 8 against the New Orleans Saints, when he started injections to numb the problem area.
Lewis said he "numbed" the area every game from that point because he could see an improvement in his performance.
"This surgery was nothing, really, just to remove bone spurs and clean it out," Lewis said. "It's not like I had ligament surgery. It would have been worse if I didn't get it done. Last year, I never had full range of motion in my right ankle. I couldn't plant like I wanted to, couldn't push off and accelerate.
"Everybody knew it, but I wasn't going to tell anybody.
Newsome admitted as much Tuesday.
"We were aware of Jamal's problem the whole year," the GM said. "We considered the recent surgery a cleaning out. I don't know how much those bone spurs affected his play. ...
"But I do know that he suited up and played every game, and that says a whole lot about the guy."
It also says something about the Ravens: They have no qualms about breaking the NFL's rules when it comes to reporting injuries.
The team initially listed Lewis as questionable for Week 1 and 2 with an unspecified hip injury. He was upgraded to probable on Friday both weeks. Lewis opened Week 3 listed as questionable with an unspecified thigh injury. He was once again upgraded to probable on Friday.
Lewis didn't make another appearance on the team's official injury report until Week 13, when he was listed as questionable with an unspecified foot injury. He started and played as usual against the Browns (in a Thursday game).
And that was it. Not once all season was there a mention of an ankle problem.
And if you're still wondering how serious an issue the ankle was, here's what Lewis said Tuesday: "Regardless of the pain and agony, I played every game. Sometimes I couldn't feel a thing in my ankle, but I did notice that the explosion came back."
So. ... What do we draw from this?
As Florio suggested, the message to NFL teams is this: "It's okay to lie about injuries if you can keep the injuries under wraps through the end of your team's season."
The message to the rest of us?
Florio summed that up pretty well, too: "Keep trying to cozy up to folks who might know the real truth about injuries, because the stuff that's publicly disclosed could be, shall we say, incomplete."