Much like with my piece on Richard Sherman, I’m pretty much just here to back up the current speculation that Seattle’s secondary is going to be just fine for the Super Bowl. In yesterday’s win over the Packers, DB Earl Thomas dislocated his shoulder. More accurately, he most likely subluxated his shoulder, meaning that it was either a very temporary or partial dislocation. Still, not a pretty thing. Thomas returned to the game wearing a harness on his shoulder, which is something he would not have been able to do had this been a more serious injury. Reports today say that there is no doubt Thomas will play in two weeks at the Super Bowl:
Text on Seahawks S Earl Thomas, who has a dislocated shoulder: "Earl will play in the Super Bowl, don’t even waste any time on the story."
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 19, 2015
I love nothing more than using historical comparisons to shred those overly-optimistic reports, but here, as with Richard Sherman, I’ve got nothing. I mean, it’s not 100% guaranteed that Thomas will play, but judging by history, it’s pretty damn likely. I have a few comps from my database that I think are perfect, so let’s dig right in.
There’s a delightful little bonus with the comps for Thomas. Because I have so many shoulder dislocations in my database, I can actually just whittle these one right down to the defensive back position. Shoulder strength and range-of-motion are both really important to defensive backs, so I love that I have apples-to-apples comps on this one. Turns out, DB’s come back surprisingly fast from shoulder dislocations.
Oft-injured Morris Claiborne missed zero games with a shoulder dislocation in 2013. Same for Michael Griffin this season (even though I was sure he’d miss more due to his extensive history with shoulder surgery). Chris Houston has dislocated his shoulder three (three!) times. He missed zero games the first time, one game the second time, and the third time came in a playoff loss, so we have no data there.
It’s not always so rosy, but some of the more severe examples of this injury at that position aren’t exactly catastrophic either. Chris Conte missed two preseason games in 2012, but you could argue that those aren’t real games and that the team could afford to be overly cautious. Tim Jennings missed two games in 2012 with the same injury. The worst case example at the defensive back position would be Blidi Wreh-Wilson, who went on injured reserve for the last three games of this season with a dislocated shoulder.
Of course, none of this tells us exactly what’s in store for Earl Thomas. His shoulder dislocation could be much worse than these other examples. It’s not like I know anything about the specifics of Thomas here. All I can say is that, looking at historical comparisons for defensive backs with shoulder dislocations, I have no reason to doubt that Thomas will play.
