My first thought is that this is just our brains trying to make sense of randomness. Yes, it seems like there have been a lot of MCL injuries lately. But perhaps that is simply because they’ve happened to such prominent players. If the same number of MCL injuries fell upon special teamers and reserve players, we’d never notice. In my database, I show 31 confirmed MCL injuries in 2014. Obviously my 2015 database is not complete, but so far at least, the number of MCL injuries this year does not appear to be out-of-whack. We’re halfway through the season, and I’ve logged 18 so far.

Even if we do end up with more MCL injuries this season, I’d say that it might be nearly impossible to find one culprit to pin them on. Just in thinking about this over the last day, I can think of four distinct possibilities. The first possibility could be that field turf and athletic cleats have become “grippier.” MCL injuries often happen when a player’s foot is dug into the ground while he receives a blow from a helmet to the outside of his knee. (You can read more like this in my MCL overview). Obviously, the goal of both good turf and shoes is to provide traction, so you can’t really fault them for having too much traction.

Another possibility here is that we could just be seeing more injuries because the players are bigger, stronger, and faster. Muscles can be strengthened, but ligaments and tendons cannot, so they are often the weakest link on an athlete’s body. This is charming narrative for two reasons. On the one hand, we love to think the athletes of today are absolutely the best ever. On the other hand, their puny ligaments make them just like us. It’s like seeing celebrities shopping at Walmart in sweatpants and a Day-Glo green fanny pack.

One more possibility here is that tacklers are going lower on the body so as to avoid the head hits that they will most likely be penalized for. This is another seductive narrative as it gives us a very simple cause and effect, while also making us think that the new safety regulations are either helping or hurting player safety, whichever side we want to collect casual evidence for.

I would suggest that there is one culprit though that is actually fairly likely. This is something close to my injury-blogging world, so I have all sorts of bias here as well. I would guess that any possible increase in MCL injuries might come down simply to how injuries are reported and covered in the media. With the rise of fantasy football came a thirst for better, more specific injury information. Rather than settle for a vague term like, “knee injury,” fans and reporters started digging in a little more. People were more likely to ask whether a knee injury was an ACL, PCL, MCL, LCL, hyperextension, deep bone bruise, or something else. From my own (biased) experience, I can tell you that there’s often a point of diminishing returns when I try to pull details on an older NFL injury. Even injuries from as recently as 2005 or so will often have scant medical details reported, leaving me with a dead end. But with recent injuries, I can often find very specific information. Older reports often refer to an injury as simply a, “knee injury,” or, “knee sprain,” whereas modern reports would break it down to specific ligaments. It’s thought that the MCL sprain is the most common knee injury, so it’s safe to say that a great deal of these older, “knee sprains,” were specifically MCL injuries. In my opinion, it’s more likely that over the last few years the reporting has changed much more than the actual game or athletes. Just my thoughts though… feel free to go ahead and narrative the shit out of this if it makes you happy.

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Still awaiting word on the severity of #Packers WR Randall Cobb’s shoulder injury. Among the worries, broken collarbone is not one of them.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 30, 2015

Let’s unpack that a little. On the one hand, this Tweet sounds like positive news. Cobb’s collarbone isn’t thought to be broken. Huzzah! But wait… if you read it again, it’s still a little odd. It’s that second line of, “Among the worries, broken collarbone is not one of them.” Among the worries? That means that there are multiple worries, right? And that these multiple worries have yet to be resolved, right? See why this didn’t sit well with me?

Let me give you a ridiculous but useful analogy. Let’s say you wake up in the middle of the night to the sounds of smashing glass and footsteps coming from another room. Like the reasonable coward you are, you Usain Bolt yourself outside, possibly wearing your bedroom venetian blinds in the process. You hide in a hedge and call the police. The police show up and search the house, then come out to give your cowardly butt all the details. One officer says, “Well it wasn’t a burglar.” At that point, do you high five him and walk back into the house? Hells no. The cop has ruled out one, and only one, terrifying possibility. Sure, you’re glad that it wasn’t a burglar, but now you’re left wondering what the other possibilities are. Serial killer? Drunken hillbilly? Psycho ex? Titus Young? Chinese organ thieves? Child ghost? Human centipede? I’d also bet that the longer they took to clarify what it actually was, the more nervous you’d get.

That’s where I was with Cobb. It’s not that there are a ton of scary possibilities still out there. But there are a few, and until they are ruled out, it’s tough to celebrate the fact that he avoided the obvious collarbone fracture. Now obviously, for all sorts of legitimate reasons, RapSheet couldn’t go into great detail. But the Tweet that would’ve settled this would’ve indicated more about what injury Cobb had than what injury he did not. Without those details, we’re all left to churn rumors and speculation on Twitter. Good times.

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I don’t know what that timeline is for him to be back to full speed, but yet he’s way ahead of schedule.

So Carroll knows that Mebane is way ahead of schedule, but he does not know what Mebane’s rehab timeline is? I’m not the only one that sees a problem with that, right? This is the equivalent of measuring your progress on a roadtrip without the aid of maps, GPS, or really any basic geographic knowledge. It’s like the driver saying, “I don’t know where we are or where we’re going, but we must be getting close…. we just passed an Arby’s!” In the lengthy history of players and coaches saying that someone’s rehab is, “ahead of schedule,” this one will always hold a special place in my heart. Thanks Pete!

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With the NFL draft quickly approaching, we’re now starting to see all the usual reports, speculations, and shenanigans that we see every spring. Shenanigans, you ask? Oh yes, shenanigans, I say. The worst of these is typically when someone tries to raise illegitimate red flags about a draft prospect, presumably so that the player’s draft stock will plummet and he can be picked up for pennies on the dollar. We see these false red flags with things like character and leadership ability, but I love to focus on the ones surrounding medical and injury history. It would appear that there is a ridiculously irresponsible batch of shenanigans (they do come in batches, right?) right now surrounding Boise State RB Jay Ajayi.

Ajayi does indeed have some injury risks. Trouble is, those risks are pretty old. Ajayi tore his ACL in 2011. Yes, 2011. It was a bad tear, and some reports even use the dreaded term, “shredded,” which can often mean extensive damage to other structures in the knee besides just the ACL. I have also seen some reports that Ajayi had complications such as swelling in the surgically-repaired knee during the 2012 season, though I can’t seem to find legitimate sources to quote on that so we might want to dismiss this. Ajayi went on to play very productive 2013 and 2014 seasons without any knee problems. Ajayi had precisely zero problems passing all the NFL combine medical checks. Yet, despite all this, his stock is rumored to be plunging over long term durability concerns about his knee. Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk has the best breakdown on how ridiculous this all is, and you can read that here.

As a point of comparison, we should measure Jay Ajayi to Georgia RB Todd Gurley. Everyone seems to love Gurley (again, outlined by Florio in a different piece). Draftniks simply can’t get enough Gurley. Some people think he might be in the top 10 overall picks this year. But here’s where it gets nuts… Gurley tore his ACL last season. I wrote about Gurley’s case a few weeks ago. I don’t want to knock Todd Gurley. He’s had the care of Dr. James Andrews, the absolute best of all knee doctors. It appears that Gurley has responded very well to his surgery and rehab. That’s all cool. But why is Ajayi, who has put three post-surgery seasons on tape, viewed as a much bigger risk than Gurley?

In fairness, there is of course some reason to be concerned about Jay Ajayi. If he did have extensive damage to his knee back in 2011, then yes, there might be legitimate concern about how many miles he has left on him. If there was cartilage damage, that might certainly sap a few years off his career. But, even if he did have additional damage (which we cannot confirm) that should’ve been an existing concern for NFL teams. No team should’ve waited until this point, one week before the draft, to realize that there might be some risk in Jay Ajayi. It’s not the longevity concern that bothers me here, it’s how that concern seems to have just now popped up. The timing of this concern is suspicious, and indicates that it’s most likely just some irresponsible slander being leaked out to torpedo Ajayi’s value. I’ll be curious to see when Ajayi comes off the board, especially in comparison to Gurley.

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As I pointed out with Aaron Rodgers, this use of the term, “tear,” while medically accurate, sounds way more dramatic than it really is. All muscle strains are, to some extent, muscle tears. That’s just how they work. Maybe it’s a Grade 1 strain, meaning that the tears are on an incredibly small level. Maybe it’s a Grade 2 muscle strain in which there is some significant tearing. But usually, when people talk of, “torn muscles,” they are referring to the worst-case-scenario Grade 3 strain, which is a complete tear. These are the ones that instantly end a season and require surgery, often with complications. With Rodgers, Manning, and Beckham, we can safely assume that they suffered no more than Grade 2 strains. These injuries are significant, and I’m sure that they affected the performance of these players. Beckham was downright amazing for a healthy player, and to hear that he still wasn’t at 100% health makes you think that the ceiling is even higher for him in the future. If there even is a ceiling. Oh wait, the ceiling must be that he’s tethered to Eli, right? But really, let’s take it down a notch with this, “played through a torn muscle,” angle. It just seems a little over the top to me. If you don’t agree, just answer me this, would that New York Post headline have the same impact if it said, “Odell Beckham said he played with hamstring strain?” Doubtful.

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Packers QB Aaron Rodgers’ calf muscle has a slight tear in it in addition to be significantly strained, per… http://t.co/EHDVeLczQv

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 8, 2015

I’m used to being the pessimist, so this is difficult for me to say, but, “meh.” There’s not really any news here. Yes, I know, it certainly sounds like news, but I’m telling you that it is not. Here’s the deal…. a strain is a tear. It’s not exactly potato po-tah-to, but it’s pretty close. What we typically call a strain is in fact a tear of the muscle tissue, often on a very small, even microscopic level. A larger tear, while more severe, is still on that spectrum of muscle strain. Don’t believe me? Look it up here, here, or here. This latest news about Rodgers really doesn’t give us any substantial facts. Schefter mentions that Rodgers has, “a slight tear,” but that really doesn’t clarify anything. By the very definition of a muscle strain, we knew that (on some level) Rodgers had a muscle tear. In fact, Schefter says that Rodgers has both, “a slight tear,” and a, “significant strain.” In reality those could well be the exact same injury.

I’m not saying it’s bad reporting. It does paint a picture that Rodgers’ injury is at least a little more serious than we were led to believe when Rodgers and teammates casually brushed off questions. But this report still doesn’t offer the specific details to back up that suggestion of severity. This report is more alarming than it is informative. I would suggest that, until you hear specifics, you dismiss this as nothing but noise.

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Given all this murkiness, I can see why reporters would be searching for answers. Here’s one tweet I read today from Cincinnati Enquirer Bengals beat reporter Paul Dehner Jr:

Guenther says he's heard that Burfict will be back and fine next year.

— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) January 5, 2015

The, “Guenther,” he references is Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. So I dig just a little to find the full interview that this story was sourced from. Sure enough, Bengals.com has a good, more in-depth piece from Geoff Hobson. In it, I find the true context. Here’s the larger quote from Hobson’s piece:

Defensive coordinator Paul Guenther has been told Pro Bowl WILL linebacker Vontaze Burfict will recover from his knee problem in time for next season. He says he’s been told Burfict is trending toward surgery to fix the knee that knocked him out of the last nine games of the season, but it hasn’t been finalized.

See the difference there? It’s not that Dehner’s take is exactly wrong. It’s just that Dehner’s angle on that makes it seem like everything is all well-and-good. The truth is that, according to Guenther, Burfict will most likely need more knee surgery. More surgery is never a good thing. It might not be a big deal, and Burfict might bounce back just fine. But, from what I read, it doesn’t sound like he’s out of the woods just yet. You’d be amazed at how often this sort of positive spin seems to come up, and I’m always happy to highlight it here and bring some gloom to the equation. Isn’t that fun?

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Perhaps (most likely) because I’ve already been so pessimistic on RG3, I keep seeing reasons not to get too carried away and think that he’s actually coming back soon. The facts just aren’t there yet. Remember when they reported about how he was stretching on the field? Yeah, that didn’t mean anything. Turns out today is more of the same. In a piece from the Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg, (taken from a SiriusXM interview) head coach Jay Gruden attempts to answer some very specific questions about Griffin’s expected return date. When asked the question of, “…do you have a date circled when you think you could have him back on the field?”, Gruden replied with this:

“I would think — I would guarantee Tampa, most likely, unless something happens between now and then.”

So many things to love about that one. First, Gruden doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word, “guarantee,” as he immediately tempers it with, “most likely.” I’m guessing he regretted that G-bomb the second it slipped out. Second, I love that he then tries to back off even more with that whole, “unless something happens between now and then,” part.

If we boil this all down, we’re left with Gruden basically saying, “Griffin will play in Week 11, unless he doesn’t.” Thanks for the clarity there coach. But I’m not trying to blast Gruden. My point is simply that Griffin doesn’t know when he’ll be back, Gruden doesn’t know when he’ll be back, nobody knows when he’ll be back. There are all sorts of possible obstacles in the way, and it’s ridiculous to already start with this, “will he or won’t he,” talk.

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Given the severity of Roach’s injury, I find it offensive to read crap like this, written by ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Go ahead and take a read there to see if you find it as ridiculous as I do. If I could summarize that story into three points, it would look like this:

1.  Nick Roach was devastated by a concussion this season.
2.  Nick Roach is still having problems with vision and balance.
3.  Nick Roach will be just fine.

Which one of those stinks like NFL pom-pom waving bullshit? How can any responsible reporter look at this case and write an optimistic outlook on the player’s future? This is the sort of spin that Nick Roach’s mom would put on Nick Roach’s condition when she tells Nick Roach’s grandmother, who has a heart condition and isn’t supposed to worry so the family edits all the news they tell her. “Oh yes, Nicholas had some trouble there for a spell, but he’s going to be just fine gammy. Hey, have you knitted anything awesome lately?”

One last thing. I’m not saying that Roach won’t be fine next year. Nobody knows. I hope he is. I’m just saying that if you’re going to go that much against the grain and ignore all current facts, you might want to hedge it a little or dig a little deeper into your reasoning. That’s the sort of crap that drives my crazy about current NFL reporting. Rant over.

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As for #Redskins QB Robert Griffin III, the plan is for him to be back in 3 weeks — before the bye. That’s Oct. 27 vs. the #Cowboys.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 5, 2014

That was followed by this piece by Kevin Patra on NFL.com, which is basically just a flushed out version of the same Tweet without any new details.

As often happens with NFL reporting, it’s tough to figure out exactly where this information is coming from. This is something that drives me bonkers. Is any of this coming from someone inside the Washington club, RG3 or otherwise? Is this a case where RG3 (or whoever) simply says that they’re hoping to return early? Is this one player’s opinion or a club-wide perception, approved by the medical staff? Of course, there are no details that really help us figure any of that out.

The only concrete development that we might link to this is the recent sighting of RG3 stretching on the field with the team during practice. But even that news, reported by Mike Jones here, is careful to point out that this is not a new milestone and that it basically signifies nothing. The always-enjoyable/irritating Richard Simmons himself could stretch with the best of them, but it doesn’t mean he’s taking any snaps under center.

If you ask me (and you did, right?) this has all the makings of a ridiculous hyped up media frenzy such as we saw in 2013 with Aaron Rodgers and his magical collarbone. Remember that one? I’ve written about it enough to make most people sick. Anyone with a brain should’ve known that Rodgers would be out for roughly two months. But when Rodgers said in an interview that he hoped to start in a Thanksgiving game against Detroit, people lost their fucking minds. That started a feeding frenzy of speculative reports that would last all the way to week 17 when he eventually made his return.

If you get tired of my pessimism, I can point to at least one other source that thinks this is ridiculous already. The Washington Post’s Mike Jones published this just about an hour ago, and it’s right in line with what I was thinking. Mike Jones has been on this case from the start, and he was part of that in-depth piece on the injury that I absolutely loved. In that recent piece, Jones even insists on putting the word, “plan,” into quotes, as in, “the ‘plan’ is for Griffin to return to play against the Cowboys.” I love that, as it correctly indicates the dubiousness of that term. Whose plan is it? RG3’s? Washington’s? Nobody can really tell based on the NFL.com story.

Let’s not overlook the obvious fact here that this is a struggling Washington team that is often downright hard to watch or root for. Shitty owner, shitty name, shitty defense. In that case, why not throw some hype and optimism towards a meeting with a classic rival… on a primetime Monday Night Football game no less! Given all that, yeah, just ignore this noise.

Crud, I should also mention that I have a very vested interest in being pessimistic, as I already stuck my neck out on Griffin’s timeline here, here, and here.

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