Is there a way to reduce IR, etc. injuries?

[PatsWickedPissah]

It seems that we constantly face playoff opponents with healthier starting 22s than ours. Is there something that could be done to make even a slight (player or 3) improvement on this depressing situation?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/s...ngth.html?pagewanted=2&hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0

From 2006, the year before Turley arrived on the Farm, as Stanford’s campus is known, through last season, the number of games missed because of injury on the two-deep roster dropped by 87 percent. In 2012, only two Cardinal players required season-ending or postseason surgical repair; this year, only one.

Turley is a strength coach, and he is not a strength coach, or not exactly. Strength is not his focus. Function is. Balance is. Flexibility is.

His approach is grounded in physics, on the premise that low man wins on contact, that to get low requires mobility and stability and the ability to apply force in the opposite direction. His players bench press, but he cares more about how they lift — with hands closer together, without bouncing the bar off their chests — than how much. He wants them to bend all the way down when they squat.

BB needs to take a long hard look at the entire training and medical treatment aspects of this org in the off season.

 

[JMC00]

I think you should rethink the past few years. Outside of this season Pats have been relatively healthy for the playoffs.

And no, a new training staff isn't going to prevent stuff like an opposing defender going low and tearing a Pats player's ACL and MCL.

 

[Sicilian]

I'm sure something can be done to improve it. I highly doubt that any team in the league has the perfect system to reduce injuries, as it's an inexact and relatively unknown science. The question really is how to go about making the change while being certain you're moving it in the right direction.

BB himself believes that the lack of camps and OTA's is leading to increased rate of injuries, I'm sure he's looking into ways to counteract that (since the new rules aren't going anywhere).

 

[kennyb]

Yoga type bodyweight stretching would help. Strengthen core and hips improve flexibility. Rodney Harrison was big into it.

 

[varjao]

I think the level of intensity some players put is something to think about, it's a long season, the result of one play will not change the big picture, unless you get hurt on that play.

3 injuries from the top of my head I think could be avoided playing smart:

1 - Gronk*
2 - Amendola concussion against Saints
3 - Dmac concussion against Ravens


* If not hurt on that play, Gronk would eventually be caught in other play or game. The level of intensity he puts on his game is phenomenal but also dangerous.

 

[meatface]

I think the level of intensity some players put is something to think about, it's a long season, the result of one play will not change the big picture, unless you get hurt on that play.

3 injuries from the top of my head I think could be avoided playing smart:

1 - Gronk*
2 - Amendola concussion against Saints
3 - Dmac concussion against Ravens


* If not hurt on that play, Gronk would eventually be caught in other play or game. The level of intensity he puts on his game is phenomenal but also dangerous.

Mayo's injury late against the Saints?

 

[varjao]

Mayo's injury late against the Saints?

I don't remember very well that play, I think Chandler was making a tackle and he went to give a help right? I remember the tackle was already made, they were going down and then Mayo came with the final push.

I better double check that my friend but I think that was a normal play.

There's a thin line between playing soft and playing intense, they need to find the equilibrium point which is playing smart, Amendola learned his lesson and since that concussion he's avoiding hits pretty well which is smart because he can't handle. 2 or 3 yards more won't make a big difference once you got the first down. That's different from what Lloyd was doing here last year.

Amendola - playing smart
Lloyd - playing soft

 

[The Brandon Five]

Well according to some guy named Belichick it might help to have more offseason workouts, but what does he know?

Bill Belichick of New England Patriots questions NFL offseason workout limits - ESPN Boston

 

[JMC00]

3 injuries from the top of my head I think could be avoided playing smart:

1 - Gronk*

* If not hurt on that play, Gronk would eventually be caught in other play or game. The level of intensity he puts on his game is phenomenal but also dangerous.

Explain to me how he could have avoided a guy diving in at his leg?

He caught the ball and ran 3 steps. Only way he could have avoided that is if he caught the ball and immediately dropped to the ground a la Brandon Lloyd. And Lloyd got killed by a lot of Pats fans for playing like that.

 

[varjao]

Explain to me how he could have avoided a guy diving in at his leg?

He caught the ball and ran 3 steps. Only way he could have avoided that is if he caught the ball and immediately dropped to the ground a la Brandon Lloyd. And Lloyd got killed by a lot of Pats fans for playing like that.

Ward was coming like a truck, even if he had hit Gronk with shoulder it was going to be a big hit and Gronk would fall to the left, maybe over his left arm. No I don't have the lottery numbers, we are just speculating here but am I the only one who had this feeling that Gronk would not last until the playoffs? He's such a big target and so tough that the only way to stop him is with extra energy.

Unfortunately, it came to the point that I think he needs to play exactly like you suggested, a la Lloyd.

 

[neuronet]

People here often will say injuries are just random. Which they are. But even random distributions have means and variances, and our mean is too high. There are ways you can decrease the likelihood of injuries. I don't know if we are not doing them, or are doing them but have been incredibly unlucky.

While BB might justifiably blame some of the new practice rules on the net trending increase in injuries, that cannot explain why we have more injuries than others in the same year.

Useful data would be to split the teams into ten groups in terms of injury frequency, and find out what the group with the lowest injury frequency is doing right. ARe they just not trying hard enough, so don't overextend and get injuries? Or is their strength/conditioning regimen different?

BB is very data-driven, empirically minded. Perhaps he is looking into such things.

Or perhaps (contrary to what I've been saying) we haven't had more injuries than other teams, but have just had them in key spots so they are more notable. What percentile is our injury rate?

Just shooting from the hip here....

 

[DarrylS]

Have said this before, and will do so again wonder if there is a correlation between length of season(going to the tournament) and injuries the subsequent season... it seems as though the body does not have sufficient time to recover.

The NFL/NFLPA need to do a longitudinal study to assess how these injuries happen and what are all the variables...

 

[Mike the Brit]

Impact injuries are impact injuries. The obvious way to reduce them is to reduce the impacts: no launching, no cut blocks, no shots to knees, no blows to helmets ("defenceless" or not).

Also, of course, WADA-standard control of PEDs (reduce the size, speed and strength of players).

If the NFL and the owners regarded players as more than cannon fodder, they'd do those things easily. Impact injuries will remain so long as it's a close-quarters impact game.

But with regards to the Patriots, it's clear that they have an excessive number of muscular injuries -- wide receivers pulling up lame as they go into a sprint, cornerbacks pulling muscles as they rotate, groin strains. Those can be improved by proper training. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though the Patriots have people with those skills.

As for reducing injuries in-season by restoring more full-contact off-season workouts ... BB is by far the greatest coach in the NFL but that is a truly terrible idea (you only need to think of how many Patriots would go on IR before the season even started).

 

[Observer]

I don't think we are at a particularly high injury rate compared to others, I think we have been hit with key player injuries. If you look at this list:

2013 NFL Current Injuries - Pro-Football-Reference.com

just going by the number of injured players, we are about the same as other teams there. It is truly astounding to me though that so many players cannot even play a fraction of just 15 games. There is something fundamentally wrong with the sport when you think about it that way.

I don't think it is an issue of playing style or training regimen because these guys are seasoned athletes who have been playing at a high level their entire adult lives. Maybe it is the steroids, but I think it is a lot simpler than that.

If you are hitting people all the time and if you are stronger than ever before, you are going to either get hurt or hurt someone else sooner or later.

As far as non-contact injuries go when you are playing at the edge of your physical capacity, one wrong step, some overextension, and you will get hurt.

I think the way to limit that is to play within your abilities but most of these guys are fighting for their jobs so they typically don't really have a choice in that matter. You can do a LLoyd on one extreme and get ridiculed but make it through the season or you can do a Gronkowski and become a hero but never be able to make it to the postseason.

 

[JMC00]

But with regards to the Patriots, it's clear that they have an excessive number of muscular injuries -- wide receivers pulling up lame as they go into a sprint, cornerbacks pulling muscles as they rotate, groin strains. Those can be improved by proper training. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though the Patriots have people with those skills.

Oh stop. You act like this is a frequent occurrence every year with the Pats. But the fact is every year some teams get hit the injury bug, this year it hit the Pats.

It's been years since the Pats had these many injuries.

 

[Snake Eyes]

Explain to me how he could have avoided a guy diving in at his leg?

He caught the ball and ran 3 steps. Only way he could have avoided that is if he caught the ball and immediately dropped to the ground a la Brandon Lloyd. And Lloyd got killed by a lot of Pats fans for playing like that.

He could have jumped over the defender or he could have gone to the ground.

The last thing a professional football player should do is model his play off of what the fans want.

 

[Urgent]

 

[Dutchmaster617]

Hey OP, to this minute the heavy majority outside NE believe several teams had not only more injuries but by a landslide.

teams like

GB
PHI
DEN
IND
CIN
KC

maybe more, just from the playoffs. Nobody even acknowledges NE injuries past Gronk and the occasional Wilfork mention. I don't have the numbers so I ignore them, anyone have the numbers?

 

[JMC00]

Hey OP, to this minute the heavy majority outside NE believe several teams had not only more injuries but by a landslide.

teams like

GB
PHI
DEN
IND
CIN
KC

maybe more, just from the playoffs. Nobody even acknowledges NE injuries past Gronk and the occasional Wilfork mention. I don't have the numbers so I ignore them, anyone have the numbers?

Ya i've noticed this too. Just goes to show how the national media gives the Pats no excuses.

Only time i've seen or heard the Pats injuries mentioned is during CSNNE Patriots related programs, Boston sports radio, Patriots games, Skip Bayless, and I think Boomer Esiason said something about it this past weekend.

 

[Snake Eyes]

It seems that we constantly face playoff opponents with healthier starting 22s than ours. Is there something that could be done to make even a slight (player or 3) improvement on this depressing situation?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/s...ngth.html?pagewanted=2&hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0

From 2006, the year before Turley arrived on the Farm, as Stanford’s campus is known, through last season, the number of games missed because of injury on the two-deep roster dropped by 87 percent. In 2012, only two Cardinal players required season-ending or postseason surgical repair; this year, only one.

Turley is a strength coach, and he is not a strength coach, or not exactly. Strength is not his focus. Function is. Balance is. Flexibility is.

His approach is grounded in physics, on the premise that low man wins on contact, that to get low requires mobility and stability and the ability to apply force in the opposite direction. His players bench press, but he cares more about how they lift — with hands closer together, without bouncing the bar off their chests — than how much. He wants them to bend all the way down when they squat.

BB needs to take a long hard look at the entire training and medical treatment aspects of this org in the off season.

Great post, I spend a ton of time thinking about stuff like this.

I think traditional "strength training" is counter-productive in many ways, if one develops strength without simultaneously developing a similar proportion of coordination and flexibility then you're just asking for an injury.

I'd like to see the Patriots move towards a more function based approach varying on position, receivers and corners would spend more time moving themselves rather than moving something else, that would be reversed for the linemen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3axZJl_kFTE

This is an example of what I mean. The linemen would do more Worlds Strongest Man type of exercises, along with Judo/Sumo/Wrestling type of things.