I wanted to follow up from a previous article on injuries this last season, put together by GM Justin Walstead. I was able to organize the list of major injuries by position, age and INJ stat and here were a few takeaways that I found interesting. After doing this research I can (sort of) explain an injury by either age risk, position risk, or low injury stat.
1. Observations by Age
There is a suspicion that veteran players are more likely to get injured so the one thing that I wanted to see is if there was some parallel to age and injury specifically older players. One observation is that it seems like regardless of INJ stat of 90+ if you are over the age of 30 then you are at higher risk of injury. Ages 30+ made up 41% of the injuries in week 17 vs the 29% of injuries to ages 21-25 and 29% of injuries to ages 26-29. So my take away is that if you are over 30 regardless of INJ stat you are higher risk of injury.
2. Observations by Position
The next observation is that 26 is the death age. I say that because specifically age 26 made up the most amount of injuries with seven 26 year olds making the injury list. I conclude this result as risk of position. The players that made this list were CB, FS, HB, QB, SS. All of these positions had a higher amount of injuries.
This leads me to what positions had the highest number of injuries?
High Risk Positions (more than 5 injured)
CB - 6
HB - 5
QB - 9
WR - 9
Mid Risk Positions (less than 4 injured)
MLB - 2
FS - 2
SS - 2
Low Risk Positions (only 1 player at this position made this list)
FB - 1
LE - 1
ROLB - 1
TE - 1
No Injuries Positions
O line
DT
RE
LOLB
K
P
My take away is that I can explain certain injuries by position type and likely amount of work they?re seeing in a game. And probably the biggest take away is that the high risk positions are the ones you want to have the most depth on your team. For example, I might go lighter in talent in my O line to spend more on my QB position.
QB seems to be most risk regardless of INJ stat because we saw, Alex smith - 23 years with 93 INJ, Eli Manning - 26 with 95 INJ, and Kyle Boller 26 with 95 INJ all on the injury list in week 17. Your QB is gonna get hit and miss time regardless of INJ stat.
3. Observations by INJ Stat
And finally, looking at INJ stat, it appears to me that if you are 83 or lower INJ stat, then you are more likely to be injured regardless of low risk position. For example, this is where I saw positions like FB, TE, LE, ROLB show up. So, simply put lower than 83 you could experience an injury.
4. Exceptions I Can?t ExplainI want to point out a few names which were young and higher INJ stat. So, I have no explanation other than bad friggin? luck.
MLB Odell Thurman
24 years of age and 90 INJ stat. He?s young, lower risk position, and 90 INJ stat. I can?t really explain it.
CB Duanta Robinson
25 years of age and 89 INJ stat. I could lump him in the category of position risk, but also could just be bad luck.
SS Troy Polamalu
26 years of age and 92 INJ stat. Could also be lumped into the category of DB so kinda position risk. But this is also the same Rams team with a whopping 7 injured starters. Maybe its programming or just rotten luck.
Challenges
This is a small snapshot of week 17 and I did not record the length of injury, so there could be a correlation to these numbers and severity of injury. I would have to do more digging.
Summary? 30+ players have higher risk of injury regardless of INJ stat
? Odd spike of injuries at the age of 26, the Death Age.
? CB, HB, QB, WR have highest risk of injury, Consider padding that depth of position.
? O line, DT, LOLB, RE, K, and P had zero injuries in week 17. Consider less depth at that position, perhaps.
? Lower than 83 INJ stat increases risk of injury.
Hope this article was helpful. I?m certain that there are exceptions in every area, but this data paints a little bit of the picture. And I guess one final thought is that this article can help explain why certain injuries occur, but I can't answer at this time how the heck do you stay off the injury list?!?
