Injury 'intrigue' can wreak havoc with your lineups

	Bill Belichick may have cost some fantasy owners wins last week by being so secretive about Corey Dillon's condition. Harry How/Getty Images

By Bob Harris, Special to SI.com

There few things more interesting in fantasy football than "the intrigue," the fun that comes from studying the tea leaves, reading between the lines, translating the "coachspeak" and parsing it all into useable intelligence.

The subterfuge is widespread and it starts at the top.

Titans head coach Jeff Fisher -- who also happens to be co-chairman of the all-powerful NFL Competition Committee -- has a habit of listing every injured player on his roster as "questionable" or "out" in what can only be viewed as a blatant attempt to obfuscate their true status.

Then there's Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, whose Iron Curtain approach to the dissemination of injury information is well documented.

Last week, he listed 15 players as probable on Wednesday's initial injury report and then downgraded 14 of them to questionable on Friday. Many believe that move was in response to Atlanta's last-minute downgrade of Michael Vick the week before -- an unusual Saturday change that was widely viewed as an attempt to gain a competitive edge.

We're seeing it again this week. Cardinals head coach Dennis Green told reporters on Wednesday he had already decided between Josh McCown and Kurt Warner as his starting quarterback against Tennessee this weekend, but won't make his choice public until shortly before Sunday's kickoff.

"We basically take the position this week the more we know, the better for us it is, and the less that Tennessee knows, the better it is for us," Green said after Wednesday's practice.

Steve Mariucci is taking a similar approach this week, claiming after Friday's practice that he still hadn't decided whether Joey Harrington would continue as his starting quarterback this weekend or if veteran Jeff Garcia is sufficiently recovered from a broken fibula to take over for his foundering teammate.

I find it hard to believe that decision hasn't already been made, but it doesn't matter. We're not going to know the answer until Mariucci is ready to tell us -- even though these attempts to gain strategic advantages cause far more consternation among fantasy owners than they do their NFL opponents.

But the chicanery is by no means limited to head coaches. It extends to supporting front office personnel, players and other minions. Nowhere is that more obvious in the way teams "share" injury information.

Take the shoulder injury Marc Bulger suffered in Indianapolis on Monday night.

The team initially announced that X-rays were negative, but quickly added that a more thorough exam would be necessary to determine the full extent of the injury. So, we waited patiently until, two days after the fact, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Bulger had been diagnosed with a sprained AC joint in his throwing shoulder.

The Post-Dispatch said Bulger would miss this Sunday's game against New Orleans, plus the team's Oct. 30 tilt against Jacksonville with the most likely return date being Nov. 13 against the Seahawks.

Let's see. X-rays Monday night; an MRI Tuesday; the results announced early Wednesday. Seemed like a logical enough progression. Certainly it seemed reasonable to believe that such a delay was necessary to get an accurate assessment. That is until the NFL Network's Game of the Week, featuring Monday night's contest aired later in the week.