Giants Player Accused Of Faking Injury Placed On Season-Ending IR

The Giants are really taking this ruse to slow down the Cowboys offense seriously.

LB Dan Connor was one of two players who went down on consecutive plays in Sunday's loss in Dallas, and afterward Jerry Jones and Tony Romo both declared shenanigans.

"I thought us experts on football were the only ones who could see that," Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said, laughing and winking. "No, it was so obvious it was funny. It wasn't humorous because we really wanted the advantage, and knew we could get it if we could get the ball snapped."

"I thought we got them moving a lot and got them pretty tired during that stretch," Romo said. "They obviously had a bunch of injuries in that stretch. Tough break, I know. Seemed to come back pretty good after that, though."

Connor didn't come back at all, actually. Diagnosed with a neck injury, he sat out the rest of the game, and today was placed on season-ending injured reserve.

(The other injured Giant, Cullen Jenkins, quickly returned to the game. He was totally faking it.)

All of this goes to illustrate that any crackdown on fake injuries is wishful thinking. Despite a memo sent out to teams in the offseason, there's no way to prove an infraction. That's why the NFL didn't precisely clear the Giants from the Cowboys' accusation—it merely said there was "no basis at this time for taking action." It'd be nice if fake injuries didn't happen, but it's unpoliceable. There's no immediate way to tell the difference between Jenkins lying on the turf to thwart the no-huddle and Connor lying on the turf with nerve damage.