Daily Blog - Friday, July 24th

How Important Are Injuries In The NFL?

I’ve been using my daily blogs to share what goes into my division forecasts for the NFL. Today I would like to analyze starters lost in the NFL and just how important it really is. The chart below is how many starts were lost by each NFL team over the past 3 seasons. I would like to thank Rich Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News for these numbers as we use his totals to be consistent from one season to another. The green blocks represent a top 5 number meaning the fewest injuries lost in a season or the 3 year total while the red number indicates being in the NFL’s bottom 5. Each lost start represents a game missed by a starter. For example when NE’s QB Tom Brady was injured in the opening game he would represent 15 of NE’s 64 starts lost. The chart to the left are starts lost for the last 3 seasons and a 3 year total. The chart on the right represents a teams number of wins.

The first thing that jumps out at me that each team in green (fewest starts lost to inj) LY won at least 9 games (avg’d 10.8 wins) and 4 of the 5 made the playoff’s. By looking at the 3 year performance ALL 15 teams won at least 8 games with 11 of 14 winning 10 + and the 15 teams averaged 10.7 wins per season. The only 2 teams that did not make the playoffs during the last 3 years were the Jets LY and Pittsburgh in 2006.

2008 fewest starts lost	2007 fewest starts lost	2006 fewest starts lost
NY Jets 12 – wins 9	Tennessee 34 – wins 10	NY Jets 28 – wins 10
Atlanta 15 – wins 11	Pittsburgh 35 – wins 10	Dallas 28 – wins 9
Carolina 16 – wins 12	NY Giants 39 – wins 10	San Diego 31 – wins 14
Arizona 18 – wins 9	New England 39 – wins 16	Pittsburgh 34 – wins 8
Tennessee 21 – wins 13	Seattle 39 – wins 10	Philadelphia 35 – wins 10

While you can’t predict injuries prior to a season the below chart re-emphasizes how important staying healthy is in the NFL. Only ONE team of the 15 teams listed below made the playoffs and that was Baltimore last year. The teams that had the 5 highest starts lost over the past 3 years have had 5 wins or less 8 of the 15 times and the teams with the TOP 2 amount of starts lost averaged 3.2 wind the last 3 seasons.

Let’s take a look at what teams have had the fewest and most starts lost to injuries the last 3 seasons.

Detroit tops the list with 215 starts lost and it no surprise they also have an NFL low 10 wins in those 3 seasons. Infact the 4 teams with the most starts lost all have 19 or fewer wins over the past 3 seasons finishing 1st, 3rd, 6th and 7th in fewest wins. On the opposite end of the spectrum the 5 teams that have the lowest 3 year total have had 14 of 15 winning season 3 of the teams having the 3rd, 4th and 5th highest total of wins over the same 3 year period.

Lastly lets look at how this helps us to project a teams success for the upcoming season. I compared how many starters were lost and not surprisingly when a team had many fewer starts lost they improved and when they  had more starts lost their record was poorer.

When a team had 29 or more lost starts their record decreased 6 times and stayed the same once.

’06-’07 dif in starts lost
Denver –51  /wins –2
St Louis –51 /wins –5
Miami –45 /wins –5
Baltimore –43 /wins –8
NY Jets –35 /wins –6
Buffalo –31 /wins 0
Chicago –31 /wins -6

On the positive side teams that stayed healthier with 29 or fewer starts lost then the year prior had a better record on all 3 occasions.
’06-’07
Detroit +36 /+4 wins
Tampa Bay +33 /+5 wins
New England +29 /+4 wins

So check out this years Top 5 of the NY Jets, Atlanta, Carolina, Arizona & Tennessee and you must figure they will not be able to sustain those type of numbers again. Also look at the bottom 5 of Baltimore, New England, Denver, Seattle and Cincinnati and you must figure they will be healthier then last season. Although the odds say that the teams at the top and bottom of the above chart will do the opposite please not that Tennessee has been in the Top 5 in terms of health each of the last 2 years while both Baltimore and Denver have been in the bottom 5 the last 2 season.