The NFL has a duty to its customers to investigate the San Francisco 49ers for potentially cheating before their Week 1 contest against the New York Jets on Monday Night Football.
The star of Monday’s win for the 49ers, running back Jordan Mason, spilled the beans on his head coach potentially plotting to gain an advantage on the New York Jets defense. Mason would dominate on the ground, rushing 28 times for 147 yards and one touchdown.
During his post-game interview with Lisa Salters, Mason told the ESPN reporter Lisa Salters that he was informed by the 49ers that he would be the starting running back on Friday.
Uh oh.
Christian McCaffery was listed as questionable on Friday
Head coach Kyle Shanahan listed Christian McCaffrey as questionable to play the Jets on Friday’s injury report. If the 49ers knew McCaffrey had a slim chance of playing, they needed to rule him doubtful. If he had a 0% chance of playing, he should have been ruled out.
Mason’s comment appears to shine a light on Shanahan trying to gain an advantage over the Jets by making their coaching staff plan for McCaffrey when the 49ers had no plans to start or play the star running back.
Kyle Shanahan denies cheating
Shanahan denied deciding to start Mason before Monday night. Shanahan said “God” must have told somebody McCaffrey wouldn’t play the Jets because he didn’t know about McCaffrey’s status on Friday.
“I never told Jordan he was gonna start,” Shanahan said, answering a reporter’s question following Monday night’s game. “Told him he had to be ready a bunch. But it might have been Bobby [Turner] or somebody trying to pump him up. But I knew he was gonna have to play a lot. Told him that it wasn’t gonna be like usual.”
Per a report Tuesday by The Athletic, a spokesperson for the NFL said the league has no plans to investigate the potential cheating scandal.
The league investigated a similar case last year when Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson missed most of the team’s October contest against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a headache. Robinson said after the game that he hadn’t been feeling well the day before the game, but the Falcons didn’t add his illness to the injury report.
The league fined the Falcons and owner Arthur Smith.
The NFL must investigate the San Francisco 49ers
The league needs to investigate the potential infraction. Because if the 49ers knew McCaffrey wouldn’t play but marked him questionable, it would have illegally changed how the Jets prepared to play the game.
McCaffrey’s game status would have been of interest to sports bettors. The more the league gets in bed with gambling, and the more they allow owners to get into bed with sports gambling, the more shady these types of slip-ups become.
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