Kevin O'Connell says he wasn't telling T.J. Hockenson to fake an injury
In the second quarter on Monday night, Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell was shown on ESPN telling tight end T.J. Hockenson to "go down," leading Joe Buck to suggest on the broadcast that O'Connell wanted Hockenson to fake an injury to stop the clock. O'Connell says that wasn't the case.
O'Connell says that Hockenson was genuinely hurt, and O'Connell just wanted the team to get the time it needed to send in a substitute for him.
“It was more so about if he’s coming out – kind of similar maybe what you guys saw when we took a delay late in a previous game this year. When a guy either comes on or comes off late, we’re pretty meticulous about what personnel is on the field, what we’re gonna call with those guys in the game,” O’Connell said, via the New York Post. “It just allows us all a chance [to] reset, and he was injured. I credit all of our guys’ toughness but sometimes depending on the time of the game of the situation of the game where the clock is really not an issue, he was able to come back in the game from that which was really impressive.”
Hockenson did appear to be genuinely injured, not faking, and injured players are entitled to get an injury timeout. The NFL investigates allegations of fake injuries and sometimes disciplines players or teams for them, but there's no reason to think either O'Connell or Hockenson did anything against the rules.
