Oakland Raiders: Gareon Conley denies reported injury
By Nick Sparrow
Oakland Raiders cornerback Gareon Conley took to Twitter yesterday to dispute reports that he was dealing with shin splints, so why isn’t he playing?
Since the Oakland Raiders selected cornerback Gareon Conley with the 24th overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, fans have been excited to see him step onto the field in silver and black. However, it hasn’t been that simple.
Just days before the NFL Draft, Conley was accused of sexual assault. The Raiders chose to draft Conley with their first pick despite knowledge of this incident, claiming they believed him to be innocent. On July 31, the grand jury decided not to charge Conley with rape.
That should have allowed Conley to immediately begin practicing with his team. However, Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie told reporters that Conley was recovering from shin splints and would not practice until fully healed. Conley has not practiced since then and will not play in Saturday’s first preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals, all due to his injury.
Or so we thought.
On Thursday evening Conley responded to a fan’s tweet denying that he had shin splints:
I don't have shin splints lol
— Gareon Conley (@_gconley8) August 10, 2017
This leads to some serious questions. If Conley is not injured and is not being charged, why have the Raiders held him out of practice for almost two weeks? It was believed that Conley would be a Week 1 starter for the Raiders when they drafted him. If they still expect that to happen, I would think they would be rushing to get him as many snaps as possible after he missed the start of training camp.
It remains possible that Conley is injured and McKenzie simply misdiagnosed him to reporters. In that case, though, it seems strange that neither McKenzie of Raiders coach Jack Del Rio would not have corrected the injury report over the course of the last 10 days.
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We can’t know for certain but it seems that there might be more going on here or, at the very least, a complete lack of communication between the team and their top draft choice.