Mike Pereira
NFL & College Football Rules Expert
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the NCAA, which is the first major football organization to address the issue of faking injuries in key situations.
In the modern football landscape, a lot of teams are playing at a fast pace and high tempo with no huddles. Especially late in games, it’s difficult for defenses to keep up with the opposition, especially if the offense is having success.
The best way for some teams to slow down opposing offenses, especially in those key situations late in games, is to have a player go down “injured” on defense to stop the game. Every once in a while, you’d see a player grab a hamstring or ankle and sit down to stop the game at a key moment when the offense is on the front foot.
Teams will be discouraged to put that into practice this season, and they will be penalized if it happens in certain situations.
The problem in the past was how were officials supposed to address that? How should they know if it’s a legitimate injury? Officials are not interested in guessing whether a player is actually injured, but this became a real issue that needed to be addressed.
Starting in 2025, there will be tangible penalties assessed for this. If a player goes down after the ball has been placed for the next play, that team will be charged a timeout. If that team doesn’t have any timeouts left, it will be a five-yard penalty for a delay of game.
I’m a big fan of what the NCAA has done to combat this. The penalty is stiff enough that it will hurt the team enough to discourage players from feigning injury, but it’s also not something that will hugely change the game if a player is actually hurt.
Overall, I think these punishments will stop the fake injuries from happening. There’s a way to do it legally, and I think a lot of teams were coaching it to be done legally. The rules said it was unethical, but there was not any penalty for acting in a way that is not in the spirit of the game. There’s no morality penalty in college football with something like this.
Now, there is a punishment, which I think is a very good thing for the game.
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