Did the Raiders do wrong by Gareon Conley in 2017?
That’s a question that at least deserves to be asked after the way Conley’s leg injury was handled a year ago.
The mysterious leg injury that sent Conley to injured reserve during the Raiders week 10 bye was initially suffered all the way back in July.
General manager Reggie McKenzie downplayed the injury as “shin splints” on July 31 and characterized Conley’s recovery at the time as something that could take only a “few days” to mend. Conley responded by way of his Twitter account on August 10 and said “I don’t have shin splints lol.”
It took the Raiders another 95 days from the date of that tweet to determine that Conley would need surgery and the team’s first-round pick was finally placed on injured reserve on November 13.
Throughout the process, Conley’s relationship with certain members of the organization soured and some of the last year’s coaching staff became frustrated with what they seemed perceived to be Conley babying the injury.
As it turned out, Conley’s injury was serious and a significant amount of time was lost as the team waffled in the media (and within the organization?) on exactly what to do with Conley’s leg.
1) Who knows how good Gareon Conley will be for Raiders? But the club did him a disservice by downplaying what was obviously a pretty significant shin injury last season (Conley confirmed surgery). Easy enough to say, `was worse than we thought' and cop to it . . .
— Jerry McDonald (@Jerrymcd) June 13, 2018
2) Instead, Raiders let it twist in wind all year, never confirmed or talked about surgery, and left fans, media and social media to pile on about why he wasn't playing. In era of social media, teams serve their players better by being more forthcoming.
— Jerry McDonald (@Jerrymcd) June 13, 2018
For what it’s worth, it’s been a welcome change under Jon Gruden that the Raiders no longer shroud every injury with mystery.
Gruden has already talked about a handful of injuries in the offseason and doesn’t seem to be concerned about losing a competitive advantage by disclosing what his players are dealing with in terms of injuries.
So go ahead and keep that policy alive, Jon. The Raiders didn’t win any games last year by concealing injuries, but from a trust standpoint, it sure seems like they tried to lose a player.
twitter: @raidersbeat
