Dropping like flies
What do all the players on this list have in common?
Jamaal Charles, Kenny Britt, Tim Hightower, Shawne Merriman, Earnest Graham, Chad Henne, Danny Amendola, Roscoe Parrish, Rashad Jennings, Tony Moeaki.
They are all players that we won’t be watching for the rest of the season, because they have all been placed on season-ending Injured Reserve, and there are many more.
This year has seen a seemingly incessant list of serious injuries to players, week after week, robbing teams and fans of their best players. But why is this happening more than ever before?
Look back a few months into the Lockout. Players were not allowed to practice with their team mates and coaches; it was up to them to stay fit and healthy on their own, with less equipment, direction and motivation in the form of being paid.
The majority of the players that are getting injured must have had a poor work ethic when it came to exercise habits and eating the right things, because the large frequency of these injuries cannot be down to just luck.
Another reason for the filling up of treatment tables could be that, as the teams had less time to condition their players for the upcoming season, fitness schedules may have been accelerated, causing players to put more and more strain upon their bodies as they raced to be fully fit before the regular season started.
This could explain the large frequency of serious knee injuries, like ruptured ACL’s and torn MCL’s.
Some players though have just been plain unlucky. Look at Jamaal Charles of Kansas City, he ruptured his ACL falling into the Detroit Lions’ mascot on the sideline after a run.
You can also look at the decreased amount of practice time as a direct cause for many injuries to Quarterbacks. Offensive linemen have had less time to learn how their team mates work together to try and protect their triggerman, therefore causing miscommunication and leaving the QB open to more hits.
And on that note, how Jay Cutler is still standing I will never know.
The NFL has made many changes to the rules to protect players, with no helmet to helmet hits due to increased concussions within the game, no tackles below the knee on the QB and more unnecessary roughness flags for big hits, but they seem to have made no impact at all on reducing the number of injuries.
Maybe it is time for the Commissioner and the NFL to restore the game back to the hard-hitting, physical game we all know and love, that way, players will concentrate more on their conditioning and strength to avoid injuries.
Oh and the one padded practice a week rule? Well we all know that’s ridiculous.