Believe it or not, I actually feel a little bad being so pessimistic about injured NFL players. It’s not that I want them to be injured, or that I don’t want to see them bounce right back, it’s just that time after time we seem to overlook the possible complications and setbacks, and I feel I need to highlight those risks. After (yet again) expressing pessimism about Le’Veon Bell’s knee injury from last season, I spent a bit of time thinking about my outlook and my pessimism. Rather than put the blame squarely on myself, I decided to drag Sir Issac Newton onto my side, whether or not he likes it. If Newton really wanted to disagree with me, he should’ve lived another 289 years.

Issac Newton dominated science. Absolutely crushed it. Like GOAT, though maybe he’s the second-fiddle Peyton Manning to Albert Einstein (who is clearly Tom Brady in this analogy). Regardless, Newton was the man. Among his revolutionary laws of physics, I’m going to focus on his first law, which by the time any of us can understand it, is dumbed down to something like this: (from Wikipedia)

An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it.

There’s something very simple here that I feel is entirely applicable to NFL injuries. For my purposes, let’s update this law to:

A player who is injured will remain injured until proven otherwise.

Let’s boil things way down. For our purposes, imagine, “injured,” to be a binary designation. Either a player is injured or he is not. He cannot be neither, and he cannot be both. Until an injured player actually returns and plays another game, he is injured, no matter what the specific details might be.

Now don’t jump the gun by pointing out that time itself and the human body’s healing process count as an outside force that acts upon the player. Yes, that is entirely true. But the problem is, we often have no way of knowing how close the player is to returning to the lineup. Even after a player returns to practice, he is often held out of games, or worse yet for fantasy owners, is designated a, “game-time decision.” That’s the sort of ambiguity that can be avoided by adapting Newton’s first law.

Think of the many advantages of adopting this injury philosophy. In fantasy football (traditional or DFS), you will sometimes be wrong and miss out on some value. Someone else will take on the risk of rostering a recently-injured player, and that risk will sometimes pay off. But I would argue that the upside of that risk is heavily countered by the downside. Rostering a player who either doesn’t start or is ineffective or limited due to recent injury would likely be a devastating blow to any fantasy lineup. If volatility is your goal and the cost is right, there’s a great argument for recently-injured players. But this is a situation where an owner would truly need to understand the gamble, and I’m not confident that most do.

Aside from fantasy football, this injury philosophy could do wonders to relieve the stress of football fans. Rather than comb through multiple media reports trying to get everyone’s (often conflicting) takes on what’s happening with an injured player, you can just tune out the noise and focus on something else. This is the equivalent of taking a roadtrip and saying, “We’ll get there when we get there.” Or not setting an alarm clock to wake up in the morning (obviously back before I had kids that make it their goal to wake me up at 6 a.m. no matter what).

To those who would question the final accuracy of Newton’s law of NFL injuries, I would argue that it’s actually fairly accurate. Every week (or day/month/whatever) that a player remains injured, you were correct in your assumption. At some unknown point, that player will return to the lineup, and you will then be wrong for assuming that he would remain injured. But you will be wrong once, and only once. Those people that try to read the tea leaves and predict the return of an injured player might make false predictions multiple times during the recovery of one player. (Believe me, I appreciate the irony of this post, as I very much make it my business to make such return predictions.)

So, what do you say readers? Does Isaac Newton’s first law have anything useful to add to our fantasy football decisions? I’m curious to know how this sits with people.

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Think about this from the standpoint of an NFL player. The players union (NFLPA) has a very specific set of rules over how frequently a player can be drug tested, and there is a clear outline for the procedure. Yes, I understand that a blood test for a concussion should not be testing for performance enhancing drugs. These are different things, I get it. But, in the collective minds of the players and the union, do you think that they would be comfortable giving blood samples that could in theory be used to test for banned substances? Unless there was a bullet-proof system hammered out and agreed to by the NFLPA, there is no way a player would voluntarily give a blood sample which could reveal so much more than simply a concussion diagnosis.

In case I didn’t make it clear, I’m 100% in favor of the research. We need every test, treatment, and solution in regards to concussions. In this case, the problem I see is everyone’s knee-jerk reaction to think that this particular test might be applicable to the NFL. In the current NFL, it seems like there’s not much upside to blood samples.

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I think the true importance of Jerod Mayo can best be seen in how the Patriots defense was shaped around him. The guy was a beast of a middle linebacker. He was a sure tackler, above-average cover man, and a smart defensive captain. This rare combo allowed the Patriots to do two important things. First, it gave Belichick the confidence to switch back to a 4-3 defense in 2011, Mayo’s fourth season in the NFL. I suspect Belichick had seen enough from Mayo over the previous three seasons that he was certain Mayo could handle the extra importance of being the sole middle linebacker in this new scheme.

Secondly, Mayo’s reliable play in the middle elevated other Patriots. Because of Mayo, the Patriots were able to get away with using some players that were, how shall we put it… “not so great?” When you know that the middle is reasonably tied up, you can start defensive ends who maybe aren’t exactly the typical starting caliber NFL players. No offense to anyone, but Mike Wright and Mark Anderson spring to mind, as both posted surprisingly good stats playing with Mayo in the middle. I’m tempted to throw Rob Ninkovich into the conversation as well, though Ninkovich is absolutely talented in his own right.

Here’s where I open a can of worms by trashing Pats fans, a group I wholeheartedly belong to. One of the frequent criticisms of Pats fans, aside from their obnoxious loud-mouthiness, is that they take the Patriots success for granted. Nothing is ever good enough for them. Yes, they have possibly the best quarterback to ever play the game, but they’ll still rain down some boo’s if Brady has three consecutive stalled drives. I see both sides on that, and I don’t really care if people boo or cheer or whatever. But Jerod Mayo brought out an argument from some fans that I always felt really showed how spoiled they could be. In ESPN beat writer Mike Reiss’s column, I can remember reading many fan-submitted comments along the lines of, “Yes, Mayo is good. But as a first-round pick, he should really be coming up with more sacks/interceptions/fumble recoveries. He’s just okay, not great like he should be.” Bullshit of the highest order, I say. Mayo did exactly what he was brought in to do, and he did it spectacularly. As Reiss always pointed out, there were always 31 other NFL teams that would’ve loved to have Mayo. Fans (of any teams) often have little appreciation for the reliable, if not flashy, defensive contributors. That’s a shame.

Lastly, Jerod Mayo will always have a special place in the heart of all Patriots fans due to his connection with Spygate. The Patriots lost their 2008 first-round draft pick as punishment for the 2007 Spygate debacle. But Belichick’s strategy of always trading a pick today for a better pick tomorrow paid off big time, as it left the Patriots with a prime pick in the 2008 draft. Back in 2007, San Francisco wanted to move up to select tackle Joe Staley. New England agreed, at a steep price of course. That 2007 late-first round, pick number 28 eventually netted the Patriots Jerod Mayo at 2008, 10th overall, as well as Randy Moss. How’s that for a deal? A few seasons later, Patriots fans could look back at the two players the Pats were able to pick up despite the harsh (though perhaps fair) punishment handed down by the league, and smirk an obnoxious smirk.

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My first thought when I heard Mayo’s news was, “Well, that doesn’t bode well for Jimmy Graham.” It’s not that there’s any direct connection there, so I’ll explain. Part of the recent decline of Jerod Mayo is his patellar tendon rupture from Week 6 of 2014. This is a devastating injury, and Mayo was one of the few success stories in recent memory. While he did not return as the stud he once was, he was at least a serviceable rotational player, which is more than can be said about almost everyone else who has suffered the same injury. So now, the best-case-scenario comp for Jimmy Graham’s potential recovery is retiring due in part to declining health.

Like I said, the two players aren’t directly connected. Mayo’s declining health does not necessarily mean that Graham will follow suit. Mayo also suffered a torn pectoral to close out this season, an injury that ended his 2013 season as well, and this is likely a big part of his decision to retire. But, even when healthy this season, Mayo was not the player he once was. This all leads me to question whether we’ll see Jimmy Graham play again, and, if so, will he be recognizable?

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Things have settled down a bit now, and I’m trying to get back on some sort of respectable schedule on this blog. I’ve got a few pieces I’ll be posting just to clean out my notebook, so please forgive me if they’re a wee-bit stale. I’m hoping to get caught up on some of the older stuff (and my huge workload of database entry) and throw out some pieces on the NFL draft and free agency from an injury standpoint. As always, be sure to chime in or drop me a line if you have any specific requests for the offseason. Please do not request that I write a long-form piece on how devastatingly close my Patriots came to making another Super Bowl appearance.

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One obvious problem here is that the NFL seems to be asking one medical spotter to do too much. This person is located in an upper-level booth, and although they have access to a broadcast feed (as well as a video technician to work the video equipment) they’re being asked to do much more than just watch the same video feed that we watch at home. Since the action that they’re concerned with isn’t always on the broadcast feed, these spotters are also using their naked eye as well as binoculars in order to see what unfolds on the field. So when we at home see seconds of obvious concussion symptoms on video, the spotter might actually not be watching the same feed. It seems like this is a system that could easily be improved by simply adding another set of eyes. One spotter could watch the broadcast feed while the other focuses on what the cameras aren’t capturing.

The second flaw, and I believe the more serious one, is that the spotters have very little power. They do have the power to stop the game, but here are the rules on that from the official NFL Operations page: (bold text in original, not from me)

New in 2015, ATC spotters may use a medical timeout to stop the game to remove a player from the field for medical examination. The spotter can only stop play with clear visual evidence of two very specific criteria:

1. A player who displays obvious signs of disorientation or is clearly unstable; and
2. If it becomes apparent that the player is attempting to remain in the game and not be attended to by the club’s medical or athletic training staff.

You see the way the NFL printed that, “clear visual evidence,” in bold? Seems like they’re really stressing that these spotters aren’t going to order any medical timeouts unless they’re absolutely, iron-clad certain that they are correct. Plus, the NFL is saying that obvious concussion symptoms aren’t even enough to warrant a medical timeout, as criteria #2 needs to be met as well. In essence, the NFL is saying that the medical spotter cannot call a timeout until a player has already been left in harm’s way.

Shy of this medical timeout, the spotters really have no power. Here’s another quote taken directly from NFL Ops:

When immediate action is required, the spotter can call the bench to speak with the team physician or head athletic trainer and provide details of a potential injury. The spotter can send the video via fiber optic cable to a sideline monitor where the physician or trainer can see the play. The medical staff, assisted by an on-field injury video technician, can ask for slow motion, specific angles, rewind and more.

Do you see what’s missing there? The spotter can call the sideline and talk to a trainer or physician. The spotter can tell that person what he or she witnessed. But there is no mention of a hierarchy or power structure there. There is no obligation for the team’s medical staff to actually follow through and act on what the spotter tells them. Obviously, you would hope that the medical staff would act on this, but history tells us that medical staffs, for a variety of reasons, don’t always follow up properly. For example, a spotter could call the sideline to report a possible concussion, but the sideline medical staff could simply decide that a concussion assessment test is unnecessary, as they don’t suspect that the player suffered a concussion. That’s the same loophole (without the spotter part) that the Steelers sideline staff used to decide that neither Ben Roethlisberger or Heath Miller needed concussion tests during a playoff game against the Ravens last year.

The first step in fixing this system might be to push for spotters to flex their muscle and be more proactive in calling medical timeouts. But there’s a problem here as well. If a timeout is called, the rules state that the player has to go to the sideline for evaluation and stay out, “at least one play.” So again, we’re back to trusting that the team medical staff will be responsible and conservative, and not simply allow a player to return (the same way Roethlisberger and Miller did). So really, the whole system is flawed. It’s easy to blame the one person who really should’ve seen and reported the problem, but the truth is we have no way of knowing whether that person dropped the ball or why. The true problem here is that, despite recent focus, the NFL still has no real accountability when it comes to protecting the safety of the players. For now, all we have are scapegoats.

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New York Jets punter Ryan Quigley is dealing with an infection that sounds scary. NJ.com’s Dom Cosentino wrote about it, and I’ve pulled this from his story:

Quigley said he had some scratches on his shin last week against Washington when he had a punt blocked for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. He said everything seemed normal until after practice on Friday. By Saturday, he said, “it was kind of out of control.”

“I was fine all week,” he said. “It was kind of like a freak thing. … I got an infection underneath the skin somehow.” Quigley said he had taken care of the shin all week and wasn’t sure if he got some dirt in it during practice. He said he hadn’t done anything he can think of to aggravate the problem.

Quigley said he’s been taking antibiotic pills. He expects to be fine.

When I read this, I can’t help but be reminded of New York Giants TE Daniel Fells’ MRSA infection from earlier this month. If you’re not familiar, Fells received a cortisone injection in his ankle that led to an antibiotic resistant staph infection. Fells ended up having seven surgeries to combat the infection, and his playing days are likely done. Believe it or not, that’s actually a good outcome, as it was thought he might lose his foot, and perhaps suffer even more damage if the infection spread further into his body.

Reading about Ryan Quigley today, it was tough not to find some similarities. Hopefully the antibiotics are working for Quigley, and this is a non-story. But it stood out to me that Quigley acquired his initial injury at MetLife stadium, the same stadium that Daniel Fells would’ve played at as a Giant. Although the two teams have separate training facilities, they share the same stadium.

Like I said, I hope I’m wrong. And so far, there’s no reason to think I’m right and that there’s any connection between Fells’ illness and Quigley’s. Also, even if I was somehow right, I’d point out that the Giants are reported to have handled their own MRSA situation appropriately and to the accepted and recommended standards, as reported here. But again, having said all that, that’s the angle my (perhaps paranoid) brain keeps returning to today.

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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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In Saturday’s preseason game, New York Giants linebacker Mark Herzlich suffered a concussion. As I said, it’s impossible to know with any certainty how long his recovery could take. But there are a few things that we do know. In general, repeated concussions manifest with more severe symptoms and longer recoveries, especially when they occur close together. There are many questions that are still unanswered in that summary, such as, “how close together is too close?” but that statement is about as accurate as can be based on what we currently know about concussions. Because of this, one of my typical angles is to check if a concussed player has a history of concussions. As it turns out, Mark Herzlich has a history that troubles me. In a Week 13 game in 2014, Herzlich suffered a concussion yet remained on the field to close out the game. From the video at that link, you can see some odd, uncoordinated movements from Herzlich that make you wonder why he wasn’t pulled out for evaluation. Instead, Herzlich stayed in for the next few plays, including a kickoff, and finished the game.

Herzlich ended up missing the following week as his concussion symptoms lingered. You can read specific details on his symptoms and rehab here. Aside from the initial mistake of not being pulled from the game, I have no reason to think that Herzlich’s concussion was handled improperly. It would appear that Herzlich was fine to return after that one week absence… no beef there. But it’s this history of a November concussion that makes we worry a little when I read that he’s now suffered another concussion. I have no details on this latest one. I have no idea when he will return. For all I know, he’ll be fine and practicing this week. But because this is his second concussion in nine months, I see an increased risk that he will miss extended time. I hope this is not the case. Nobody has any idea how increased this risk is, so I don’t mean to overhype this angle. Hopefully Herzlich recovers quickly. Maybe he sits out the rest of the preseason as a precaution. But this latest concussion might be something worth watching, especially given how depleted the Giants defense already is.

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We’ve all heard by now that the NFL is getting tough and really taking concussions seriously, right? There are new regulations, rules, and an overall enlightened awareness that are all supposed to come together and protect the players. In practice, well, not so much. The trouble is, there’s a really simple way to bypass all these new safety measures, and we saw it at least four times during the post-season this year. Did you catch it? It had a huge impact on the game each time it happened, and while it was later discussed, I was surprised that it didn’t get more media traction.

In theory, here’s how it’s supposed to work. When a team suspects that a player has suffered a concussion (or even if they see the potential of a possible head injury), the player is supposed to undergo an extensive test, referred to as the, “NFL sideline concussion assessment tool.” It’s publicly available here, so you can read it yourself. It’s a pretty beefy questionnaire that checks for both physical and cognitive symptoms of a concussion. There’s no real consensus for how long the test takes to complete, but I’ve read different opinions from sports doctors that range from eight minutes to twenty minutes for a thorough test. In fact, if you read the test itself, you can see that there is a delayed-recall portion in there that must be given a minimum of five minutes after the beginning of the test. Given that fact, any test that takes less than five minutes, is, by definition, not a complete test and does not follow this protocol.

The true concussion assessment test can’t be manipulated. It’s a good test, and, when followed correctly, it’s an important step in protecting players from risking further brain injury. It can’t prevent the concussions, but it’s still light years ahead of where we were a few years ago. But here’s where it gets interesting. In assessing a player for a concussion, teams can decide that the concussion assessment tool is not necessary. A player who has been sent to the sideline for concussion evaluation can be ruled to not have a concussion, even without taking this test. That’s madness! Concussions can be difficult to detect, which is why there is an assessment tool. Nobody should be allowed to simply chat for a few seconds with a player who is suspected of having a head injury and then determine that no further assessment is needed. That’s the very purpose of the assessment tool!

Despite this contradiction, NFL teams seemed to skip the assessment tool plenty this past season. The Steelers skipped it with both Ben Roethlisberger and Heath Miller in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore wrote about that here. For what it’s worth, the Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore and Mike Jones are both doing some great, detailed injury coverage. Both Roethlisberger and Miller took severe blows to the head and, through their subsequent actions, appeared to have suffered concussions. But both were spoken to on the sidelines far too briefly to have undergone the assessment tool, and both were returned to the game almost immediately. Also, both seemed to make uncharacteristic mistakes after returning, leading to plenty of speculation as to how healthy they truly were. In the NFC Championship game, Russell Wilson faced a similar sideline diagnosis that allowed him to skip the full concussion assessment tool. You can read the details about it here. In the Super Bowl, Patriots receiver Julian Edelman never missed an offensive snap after taking what everyone at home saw as a concussion-causing hit. Later reports said that he, “passed a concussion test,” but they do not indicate if this was the full concussion assessment tool, although it seems unlikely given how little time he spent on the sideline. Also, there is no explanation of why he was allowed to stay in the game and delay this testing until after the offensive series was completed. While we lack the exact details, it seems fairly likely that Edelman was given the same concussion loophole bypass that Wilson, Roethlisberger, and Miller experienced.

If the NFL is really serious about treating concussions and protecting the health of the players, why is there such a simple way for the medical staff to avoid a thorough concussion test? What is the purpose of having a clear protocol if there is no requirement to follow it? With all the increased focus on concussions in the NFL, this is a loophole that needs to be closed immediately.

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