Heading into Sunday's game against the New York Giants, Delanie Walker was the most notable recent injury issue, but other players were a bit banged up. Kyle Williams suffered a concussion in Week 16 but seemed generally good to go. I don't think it impacted his performance, but apparently New York Giants players were prepared to figure out just how much it could impact Williams' play.
According to reports out of New York, Giants players have apparently admitted to targeting Kyle Williams with hopes of knocking him out of the game. They knew he had suffered a concussion relatively recently and they wanted to use that information to their advantage in a must-win game. Sam Lam indicated he noticed Giants players taking swipes at Delanie Walker's helmet. This follows Walker's own comments heading into the game that he expected the Giants to come after him because of his jaw injury.
My immediate reaction was one of a disgust. While winning is a great thing, feeling the need to resort to attempts at injuring a player is about as low as it gets. And yet, in spite of that, I have to admit that I am not remotely surprised about this. I am surprised somebody admitted it, but I'm not surprised the Giants were making these attempts.
The NFL has made numerous rule changes to try and decrease tramautic injuries, particularly to the head. However, this incident shows how hard this issue will always be for the NFL. While I'd like to blame the Giants for being lower than low, it'd be naive to think this is an isolated or rare incident. It is normally not something we hear about, so it is hard to assess how frequent this happens. But to think the Giants are the only team to do this would be a bit foolish.
I have no idea how the league can legislate this issue, but it remains a problem.