Fire the conditioning coaches?

Well, saying that you are overreacting may be a bit hard, it's a definitely a concern, but I think at this point, it's not much different than most NFL camps. These guys have been off their conditioning cycle for 6-8 weeks. Or perhaps some of them got really busy in the weight room a week before TC started, or whatever. There are other reasons that they are occurring other than the conditioning program is bad and needs to be replaced. I don't think this is much different than most years and certainly if you look around the NFL right now, it's not uncommon to hear about guys lost for the season or at least having these bumps and bruises at this point in their return to playing shape...

It just might be a bit too soon to be panicking...

 

Because nobody agrees with the premise that conditioning is at fault?

 

IMO injuries are fairly unpredictable and the idea that bringing in new conditioning coaches would have some drastic effect on the team's injuries is inaccurate. Here is an article that analyzed team injuries from 2001 - 2008:

1. Injuries, or their absence, have a drastic effect on a team’s success.

Huge shifts in a team’s won-lost record are almost always supported by a similar shift in their health. The formula suggests that 26 percent of a team’s change in wins from year to year can be attributed to the change in its rate of injury.

Injuries played a huge role in determining success in 2008. Of the 10 healthiest teams in the league by H.G.L., seven made the playoffs, including the surprising seasons enjoyed by Atlanta (second-healthiest team in the league), Carolina (third), Miami (fourth), Tennessee (sixth) and Arizona (eighth). Meanwhile, only 2 of the 10 most-injured teams in the league made the playoffs: Indianapolis (sixth-most-injured team in the N.F.L.) and Baltimore (seventh).

It can be argued that the American Football Conference East was won by injuries. The New England Patriots’ fall was driven by the season-ending injury to quarterback Tom Brady in Week 1. And the Dolphins, who won the division in the final week, received 16-game seasons from Pennington, who had played only one other full season in his nine-year career, and Brown, who played his first in four seasons.

2. A superstar is worth about six to seven times as much as a reserve.

When calculating the different weights for scaling each player’s H.G.L., the ratio that yielded the best relationship with wins was about 6.75 to 1 for a missed game by a star player as opposed to a reserve. In reality, stars receive far more than 6.75 times the salary of reserves.

Take quarterback Tony Romo, whose broken finger halted the dynamic Dallas Cowboys offense in midseason. During his three games on the sideline, the Dallas offense averaged 232 yards a game, down from 371 before he was hurt, and a loss to the lowly St. Louis Rams ended up costing them a playoff spot.

3. Injury rates regress to the mean from year to year.

There is little year-to-year correlation in a team’s H.G.L., and although some teams have a superior medical staff and related facilities, injuries are often traumatic, unexpected and uncontrollable. The average team records 51.7 H.G.L. in a given season; from 2001 through 2007, the 10 healthiest teams averaged 12.6 H.G.L. in their “healthy” year to 43.1 H.G.L. in the subsequent season. The 10 most-injured teams went from 98.2 H.G.L. in their lost year to 66.2 H.G.L. in the subsequent season. The 10 healthiest teams gave up an average of about one victory just by regressing to the mean, while the 10 most-injured teams gained about one win.

The three teams with an increase of 40 or more H.G.L. last season were Cincinnati (61), New England (43) and Seattle (49). All three lost their starting quarterbacks. Carson Palmer (Bengals) and Matt Hasselbeck (Seahawks) missed a combined 21 games. Those three teams declined by an average of nearly four wins last season.

4. Injury rates within units are inconsistent from year to year.

A team with a raft of injuries at one position in a given season is not any more or less likely to have the same experience the next season.

Offensive line inconsistency holds particular significance for fans of the Jets and the Giants. They became the first teams in five years to have two consecutive seasons (2007-8) in which their five starting offensive linemen started all 16 regular-season games. That is extremely unlikely to occur for a third consecutive season, and replacing a starter can have a drastic effect on a team.

When tackle Kareem McKenzie had to leave the Giants’ Week 15 game with Dallas, his backup Kevin Boothe allowed three sacks in the second half. McKenzie allowed five sacks all season.


7. Offensive injuries are more significant than defensive ones.

Offensive injuries have not only a much stronger correlation to a team’s won-lost record than defensive injuries, but also a stronger relationship with changes in offensive performance than defensive injuries do with a change in defensive performance. Teams can often recover from an onslaught of defensive injuries. The 2007 Indianapolis Colts and the 2008 Ravens each finished second in the league in defensive H.G.L. but managed to win 13 and 11 games and make the playoffs.

Yet not one of the 10 most-injured offenses of the last eight years belonged to a playoff team. That list is led by last season’s Seahawks, with injuries to Hasselbeck and their top five receivers, most notably Deion Branch and Nate Burleson.

The implication of that finding would be that offensive players are more valuable and that more money should be spent on securing quality offensive depth than defensive depth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/sports/football/13injuries.html?pagewanted=all

I cut and pasted a few sections I found interesting. #1 and #3 are the sections that most applies to this thread. The basic point is that injuries have a huge impact but there isn't much difference among teams in their injury rates over several seasons. Sure some teams have heavy injuries one year and few injuries in other years, but on average it balances out. Unless you believe that the medical and conditioning staffs for these teams get smarter and then dumber from year to year, I think it's fairly clear that whether you have a healthy year or an injured year is mostly a matter of luck.

 

im sorry, are there actually people out there that believe there's some kind of magical training program you can put these guys through that upon completion they won't get hurt?

Seriously, we're talking about a sport where 300lb men wail on each other for 2-3 hours. Injuries are going to happen.

 

That was rare, very rare (two years ago).

It's like the Yankees a few years ago, they had injuries, fired the conditioning coach, only to all of the sudden get more people pulling Hammys under the new guy.

Things happen.

I look at how tougher we play in the 4th quarter now instead of folding like we did before, that to me shows the conditioning is better.

 

When Parcells left the cowboys they all ripped on the conditioning program. Bitter, sour grapes? Perhaps. They said the conditioning program makes you stronger but breaks you down sooner. aka david boston syndrome

I don't blame the program. IT's the FO's penchant for picking up oft injured players and signing them to big contracts. Aka smiley and grove

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but with 80 players, a few more weeks and four preseason games to go, there will be more injuries. Probably a few serious ones at that.

Will Allen is coming off a torn ACL (among other things) and has been banged up the better part of three years. His body is simply breaking down. Nate Garner is coming off offseason foot surgery and re-injured it when someone stepped on it awkwardly.

How do you prevent those things? You can't. And as I noted previously, we're seeing predominantly first and second year players getting hurt. Might not mean anything, but sometimes their bodies simply 'there' yet. I just think it's interesting.

We were lucky in 2008. Chad and Ronnie played 16 and that's an anomaly. But don't think we weren't banged up. Guys played thru more pain than they ever had during their careers. I just have a hard time believing that the same training staff suddenly doesn't know how to keep players healthy.

Something else to consider: when a non-superstar gets hurt now and will be out say, 8 weeks (approximately Week 3 or 4), he's going on the shelf. The team simply can't and won't wait for everybody.

 

Agreed. They probably feel like they're bargain shopping and have have faith in the conditioning program to help guys stay healthy, but injury history is injury history.

Speaking of, Will Allen just underwent arthroscopic knee cleaning and will be out until the opener.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-jdEb5zxL4"]YouTube- Mike Francesa kills Rex Ryan and Jets[/ame]

 

He was killing him about the show today, it was great, and now Ryan has come out and said he was sorry.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/nfl/08/12/hard.knocks.ap/index.html?eref=sihp

 

I miss Francesa, used to listen to him on WFAN when I lived in CT. He tells it like it is. Love how he put Rex in his place.

 

if there is a problem in the program,
they know it & it will be fixed
I've often wondered how any team could stay healthy
w/ the size, weight & speed of the average player today
everyday on-field collisions are potentially catastrophic
that's why we have quality depth across the board
physicality & brutality rule the NFL today

if the answer w/ to fire someone,
it would have been done already.
the answer lies in training, coaching
& quality depth @ all positions...
you've got to be lucky,
things have to fall your way now & then
when something works to your advantage
you have the talent & physicality
to open the door

think about it...

 

well let's see by those players you listed
Crowder-always kinda hurt
Merling-backup-perhaps washout
Haynos-3rd string
Oglesby-herpes
Garner-backup/rotational/already hurt before camp anyway.

This gets a big ol' "whatever" on my radar.

 

Have you seen the other teams injury lists?

Pretty much every team has a bunch of injuries, hell look at the Giants.

 

As a Bills fan, I know the importance of good Strength and Conditioning Coaches. We've been among the most injured teams if not THE most injured team for years running. Mike Mularkey saw fit to fire Rusty Jones, who was a staple of this team for about 20 years. We saw a huge amount of injuries after that.

Injuries are part of the game, and some of them are just unavoidable. But if they keep happening to an unacceptable degree, you know something is up. I can't speak for the Dolphins' Strength and Conditioning Coordinators, but only stress how important it is have good ones. Two of the Bills rookies are already on IR...I hope that this does not continue.