The Buffalo Bills will not be penalized by the NFL for the reporting of Jerry Hughes’ wrist injury.
Shortly after the Buffalo Bills playoff loss to the Houston Texans, Jerry Hughes had tweeted that he had been playing with torn ligaments in his wrist. However, this began raising questions because Hughes had not appeared on the Bills’ weekly injury report for a wrist injury.
This potentially was a violation of the NFL’s rules about reporting injuries and the league opened an investigation after being alerted by the Pro Football Writers Association, according to Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News.
Well on Monday, Carucci tweeted out the Bills would not be penalized by the league and they had closed their investigation.
After a review, the #NFL found no violation of its injury reporting policy by the #Bills regarding Jerry Hughes’ wrist injury, per a league spokesman.
— Vic Carucci (@viccarucci) January 27, 2020
If the Bills were found in violation it would have likely resulted in a fine by the league.
While the injury didn’t cost Hughes any games this year, he certainly did not perform at a level fans have come to expect. He had only 4.5 sacks in 16 regular seasons but did show up for the playoff game against the Texans and had three sacks in that one game alone.
The good news from the league on Monday followed news from Friday that Hughes did have successful surgery to repair the torn ligaments in his wrist last week.
Jerry Hughes has been a key piece for the Buffalo Bills and this defense. He is actually the longest tenured player on the Bills after defensive tackle Kyle Williams retired after last season.
While he will be 32 years old to open next season, the performance against the Texans shows he does have enough left in the tank to be productive. If the Bills are able to find a top pass rusher to pair with Hughes next season, he could be in line for a bounce back performance in 2020.