You never like to see a team get caught cheating. You’d like to think on a professional level that teams would not feel compelled to cheat, but some people jsut feel the need to get a competitive edge.

Green Bay Packers broke NFL rules by taking QB Aaron Rodgers off IR, playing him for a game, and then putting him back on IR when they were eliminated from playoff contention.

Originally reported by Will Brinson, this is what he had to say on the subject.

NFL injured reserve rules allow a team to use a temporary IR slot on a player and have him return, as the Packers did with Rodgers. However, in order to be placed back on injured reserve, the player needs to suffer a new injury.

Rodgers left the game against Carolina because he was “sore” at one point, but he was not placed on injured reserve until Tuesday, when the Packers had been eliminated from the playoffs courtesy of the Falcons beating the Buccaneers on Monday night.

When they placed Rodgers back on injured reserve, they did not provide an injury-specific reason for placing him on IR. Everyone just sort of assumed the Packers were placing him on IR with the same collarbone injury that had kept him out since Week 7 when he hurt it against the Vikings. The plan was obvious all along: bring him back in Week 15, make a Hail Mary run to the playoffs and hope to just catch fire.

The plan didn’t work out of the gate, so the Packers put him back on injured reserve. The problem? If a team places a player on injured reserve with the same injury, the team who places him on injured reserve is required to release him.

As evidenced by various social media posts after tonight’s, Lions fans were not happy with their team’s second half performance. You can find many of those tweets from the Detroit fan base below:

https://twitter.com/anthonymcandy/status/1440164931005870089?s=21
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