During an episode of the Netflix show Receiver, Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown revealed the extent of the injuries, etc. he dealt with over the course of last season. A toe issue was previously known, and he was late addition to the Week 8 injury report with an illness that turned out to be hand. foot and mouth disease.
St. Brown talked about the toe issue from Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks, and he talked about playing with a new injury when the Lions had a short week before playing the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football in Week 4 (h/t to Pride of Detroit).
"I’ve had a hip pointer before, so I thought it was a hip pointer,” St. Brown said. “And I’m like, ‘Damn, my toe’s still hurting at this point. Now I have this oblique injury." "It’s too late for me not to play. The game plan’s in. “Painkillers is something that I really don’t like to take unless... unless it’s the Packers."
St. Brown missed Week 5 against the Carolina Panthers with that left oblique issue, after an MRI had revealed he had torn the muscle "completely off the bone."
Lions could be in hot water over Amon-Ra St. Brown injury situation
The NFL takes their injury reporting rules seriously, and the prominence of gambling gives full disclosure of injuries an added layer of implications now.
St. Brown was never listed on an injury report heading into the Week 4 game against Green Bay. He played his normal amount (66 snaps; an 88 percent snap share) and he had five receptions for 56 yards and a touchdown in the game. Nothing to abnormal about his performance, even if the yardage was a little light.
Per Fox Sports.com, the over-under on St. Brown's yardage that week was 72.5. Knowing about the oblique injury could have led to bettors taking the under.
As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk noted, editing of that episode of Receiver could have removed the reveal that St. Brown suffered his oblique injury in Week 3 against the Atlanta Falcons. The overall storyline of the stuff he dealt with last season would not lose anything without that specific fact.
But there it is, for the world to see and hear. Now the question is what the NFL will do about the Lions hiding an injury to a key player during a short week, if anything. There is precedent for fining teams that are found to have willingly withheld injury information (see Steelers-Ben Roethlisberger in 2019).
This is just another signal to never fully trust NFL injury reports. A team being fined will not prevent the hiding of injuries if teams think it'll benefit them.
