Okay, you can all take a minute to welcome me back. I’ve been balls-deep in database work for longer than I care to think about, but real football is almost upon us, so I need to get back out and start calling bullshit when I see it. Today, the news that finally brought me back out of my Pabts Blue Ribbon coma revolved around Cardinals WR Michael Floyd. Earlier in the day, the news was that Floyd fractured three of his fingers and would miss about six weeks:
Michael Floyd will miss roughly six weeks I’m told with three broken fingers on left hand. Big, big part of the AZ offense. Injured today
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) August 5, 2015
Now, about two hours later, a different report disputes that and says that Floyds fingers were dislocated rather than fractured, and that he should be out for about a month:
Source confirmed Floyd suffered dislocated fingers. He’ll miss around a month
— Kent Somers (@kentsomers) August 6, 2015
Sounds good enough, right? Nope. About a month for dislocated fingers, even three of them at a hand-heavy skills position like WR, seems really pessimistic to me. Luckily, I have a database to back me up on this hunch. You know how many weeks most players with dislocated fingers miss? Did you guess zero, because that’s the overwhelming answer. I have 10 finger dislocations in my database, and 7 of them miss zero time. In fact, dislocated fingers are so common that there are probably plenty of them that I don’t even have records on them. The most severe one I can find was LB Sean Weatherspoon who missed two preseason games with a similar injury in 2013.
Given that discrepancy, I’m not sure what to make of Floyd’s injury. Maybe we’ll hear a different diagnosis once the dust settles. Or maybe we’ll see Floyd come back much sooner than people are currently anticipating. I’m curious to see which way this goes, as it simply doesn’t make sense so far.
Update: After the dust settled, it was clarified that the injury was more severe than originally stated. In fact, it was downright gruesome. The three fingers on his left hand weren’t just dislocated, but actually punctured through the palm of his hand! Yeah, that makes more sense for that estimate. Unsurprisingly, my database has exactly zero examples of fingers being dislocated and poking through the palm. At least I’ll have one ready for next time, right?
