Ryan Tannehill's surprise scratch Sunday cleared the way for an unexpected Brocktoberfest.
While that was fun for the fans in Miami, it didn't wipe away the fact Tannehill was mysteriously unavailable last week. As a result, the league is reviewing the team's reporting of Tannehill's injury, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported.
A quick review of the public injury report Friday listed Tannehill as questionable with a right shoulder injury for the Week 6 meeting with Chicago -- an injury that also has ruled him out for this week's game. That seems adequate, but Tannehill was also listed as a full participant in practice on Wednesday and Thursday, essentially eliminating concern about his status -- that is, until he was a limited participant on Friday. A vast majority of full participants don't suddenly end up inactive on Sunday, unless it's a healthy scratch, but the downgrade to questionable raised a slight eyebrow.
But the concern was slight at best, and yet, Tannehill wasn't able to go against Chicago. Coach Adam Gase was rather defensive when asked about the strange development, halfheartedly citing HIPAA laws before snapping at reporters and telling them to ask Tannehill about the injury.
Gase has since elaborated on Tannehill, saying it's a day-to-day injury that will largely depend on how the quarterback feels. Brock Osweiler will start again in Week 7.
The league looks into this sort of matter to prevent teams from attempting to gain a competitive advantage by hiding players from injury reports or overstating their severity, in order to create a gameday surprise and undercut the opposition's preparation. It's a fairly standard procedure.
With Tannehill existing on the injury report on Friday prior to the Dolphins' eventual overtime win, though, it seems more likely than not that nothing substantial will come of this.
