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Why Do You Think the Redskins Have So Many Injuries?


UltimateSkinFan616

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Now I'll be the first to say I'm disappointed in how the Redskins have performed the past few weeks, especially after getting off to such a promising start, but I just can't sit on this anymore. I looked at the injury reports for other teams last Sunday and I noticed something pretty disheartening. The Redskins are one of the most, if not THE most, injured team in the NFL.

Even if players aren't out, they're dealing with something or trying to play through pain of some sorts. Even before the Sean Taylor incident, we had Smoot, ARE, Moss, Jansen, Thomas, Washington, Griff, Daniels, Portis, and Rogers all nicked up at some point unless I'm missing someone. Now Springs is down for the count. What's this tell you about our organization?

Last year, it was the big injuries to Portis and Springs that doomed us. This year, half our O-line has been decimated by injuries. When healthy, they were downright dominate. Now look at them. Even with Thomas coming back, many of these guys are on the wrong side of 30 and getting injured left and right.

So where is this coming from? I know there are some things you can't prepare for in a game like football, but why does so much of it fall on us? Is it because we don't have a tough enough training camp to get everybody in football shape? Is it the ghost of Jack Kent Cook haunting us? Is it because of the age of our players? What is it? I'd sure like to know because there is no doubt in my mind that it has cost us a winning season.

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Bad luck has something to do with it. Age can have an impact if the older player isn't being super diligent about strengthening joints and maintaining flexibility. Then there's the issue that some players are just injury prone or are attempting to do things that are beyond their body's ability. Moss was frequently injured in NY and he's reverting to form. Springs was always injured with the Seahawks and he's reverting to form.

While Springs is a good corner, his age and frequent injury history is a good reason to cut him since he has a super expensive contract.

Portis was frequently injured IMO because he's been asked to do a lot more HARD running and HARD blocking than he did in Denver. Of course, he has to do all that hard work because he negotiated a super contract. But, he probably would have lasted much longer with fewer injuries if he never had to carry more than 20 times per game and was not the blitz pickup guy. I think Portis still has the potential to be an excellent back. He will look a lot better with a OL that has all of its starters back.

If we get a new coach there's certainly a possibility that they may blow up some of the roster to get rid of guys that can't produce given their contract size.

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Injuries are apart of the game but the critical ones were freak injuries (Jansen, Thomas, C Rogers). in the NFC east alot of teams play physical football, the injury bug bite us once again and hit us EARLY in the season. Injuries are setbacks not excuses, lossing the entire right side of your line, shuffling WR's nursing hamstrings and foot injuries affects the consistancy your offense is trying to build on. Lets not forget portis coming off season ending surgury and campbell recovering from a knee bruise. On defense you have DL Daniels / Griff and LB Washington CB Smoot, Springs nuring injury C Rogers out for the year S Taylor RIP. We have too many starters that this team depends on not playing 100% or not playing at all, our coaches have gameplaned and we have been in EVERY game even with all these injuries but starters is what a team banks on to make them winners come the post season not back ups at critical positions like offensive line and DB which were the strenghts of this team (2nd and in most cases 3rd string talent) No one can avoid injury its apart of the game and set us back this season ST RIP

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Well I'm not convinced we have more injuries than other teams. If someone shows me stats disputing this, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong. I just think we've had an average amount when you look around the league.

Offensive line and wideout have been the worst injuries, but really we can only blame ourselves. We've suffered in the past, having to throw Ray Brown and Cory Raymer out there to play due to bad depth. Ditto out wideout, you should never have to put Jimmy Faris in during a playoff game, as we did in Seattle.

It all comes back to lack of draft picks. Not to beat a dead horse, but you want your backups to be young guys who are competing for playing time, trying to develop into starters. When your backups are 40 years old and unwanted by anyone else in the NFL, you've got problems.

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Sorry, but I don't buy the bad luck argument.

Is there a certain degree of unpredictability? Yes. Can every element be controled? Of course not. But saying that we always get hurt because of pure misfortune would be like saying a Nascar driver who consistently gets flat tires and blows engines is also just "unlucky". BS.

The body of a professional athlete is a machine. It's science. On every physical level, it has its strengths, it has its weaknesses, and it has opportunity to improve and strengthen every day of every year.

Diet, supplements, strength and conditioning are only the beginning. They've recently discovered an enourmous amount of information about the relevance of stablizer muscles, tendon strength, and all the molecular things that make a certain aspect of a muscle, cartiledge, or bone stronger and more durable.

Some athletes know this, some don't. Some trainers know this. Some don't.

Ladanian Tomlinson, for example, is one that does. He's a 7-year workhorse playing a position whose typical career is 3 years, and over that 7 year span that featured 2,289 carries, the man has missed 1 game. Luck, or ridiculously intense off season workouts focused around the injury prevention?

I think the two main reason we suffer so many injuries are AGE and LACK OF PREPERATION.

That said, the league in general is consistenly getting bigger, faster and stronger, and so it's not any surprise we're seeing more injuries in today's game than in earlier generations. But that's the whole league, not just us. We need to get younger (drafted) talent and make a committment (both the players and the coaches) to staying in peak physical condition.

Groins and hamstring injuries? Sounds like laziness, not luck. :2cents:

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Sorry, but I don't buy the bad luck argument.

I think skill matters as well--in general, my guess is that better teams (to begin with) are also more likely to avoid injuries. The easiest example is at QB. If your QB doesn't get hit, he doesn't get injured. Thus, you'd expect teams with worse offensive lines to have more QB injuries.

Also, you're more likely to get injured when you're in a position where you're out of control (lost balance, etc). Since getting out of control is not something players try to do, my guess is that less talented players also get injured more often. One example might be Jansen's injury this year--if I recall, he got beat pretty badly on the play that he was injured, was pushed back, and fell.

These are just anecdotes, of course, but more broadly, I think it's true that more talented players/teams are less likely to get injured.

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I'm not sure the number of injuries is what drives the perception that we are unlucky. It's that all of the injuries seem to occur at the same position.

WR: Moss, ARE, Thrash...well that was ourtop three wr's till we brought in some tallent mid season.

OL: Jansen, Thomas, Kendall...add in injuries to Wade and Heyer, and we've been decimated at OL such that even our backups are dinged or out.

Secondary: losing ST, Rodgers, and Springs (with Smoot missing time as well). 3/4 of our starting secondary...ouch

Where we seem to get hurt isn't lack of depth. It's that our injuries haven't been spread around at different positions.

Seriously, we've had few serious new injuries at LB, RB, QB, or DL. We still carry talented backup at those postions. Unfortunately, a team can't have great third stringers at every position in the era of the sal cap. One has to have atleast some depth everywhere and pray your teams doesn't have an injury run at a position or group. For us this year, that injury rash has spread like poison ivy at an orgy. :(

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