The NFL ran a number of ads on the website of the New York Times about player safety just as a report came out by the paper this week about how the league released misleading research on concussions.

Ads were even displayed on the very article in question itself.

By mid-afternoon on Friday, Wall Street Journal reporters could no longer find the ads on the site. A Times spokeswoman said the ads were still in circulation, however.

A spokesman for the NFL said the league bought the ads because it wanted to present information directly to readers, rather than have it filtered through the Times’ editorial staff.