Can a team’s mascot be an injury? The way things are looking right now, I’m thinking that Houston should finally throw in the towel on that whole, “Texans,” thing and just be The Houston Hamstring Strains. I swear I’ll totally change that generic image at the top of this post if someone mocks something up for the new mascot and sends it to me. Besides, what exactly is a Texan, and why does that name irritate me so much? I don’t even hate the team. They’re easily the least obnoxious professional football team based in Texas.
To be fair, it’s probably a little early for me to call this a rash of hamstring injuries. It’s really just two players. RB Arian Foster and WR Andre Johnson. And really, it’s just the preseason, so there’s no hurry in getting them back. Trouble is, they’re easily the two best players there, and they’ve both dealt with hamstring problems in the past. It doesn’t help that hamstring injuries are notorious for lingering like farts in a tennis ball can. Oh, and yes, that works.
If you need someone smart to tell you all about hamstring strains, Doctor Dave Siebert wrote a good summary over at Bleacher Report. One thing that article is missing though is the numbers. Quick, to the database!
Since 2010, I’ve logged 103 cases of hamstring strains. I always fess up to my blind spots, so I should mention that that’s probably low and also doesn’t count a lot of the players who played through the injury without missing any games. Still, 103 is a pretty decent stack, so I’m thinking it’s a good place to start. Of that pool of 103, 75 players, or about 73% have what I refer to as a “clean” injury, meaning that they missed a certain amount of games and then returned without further complications. 22 players (21%) returned only to reinjure themselves and miss further time. 6 players (6%) of that 103 suffered injuries severe enough or late enough in the season to end up ending their season on injured reserve.
You could look at that and say that I’m being paranoid and alarmist by calling so much attention to Foster and Johnson’s preseason injuries. Given those numbers, the chance of reinjury might appear to be only a low (but significant) 21%. Here’s the thing that stands out to me though… they’ve both had these injuries before. And, with both of them, they ended up reinjuring themselves and missing more games. In 2011, Foster missed Week 1, played Week 2, then missed Week 3 with a setback. Also in 2011, Johnson missed seven (SEVEN!) games (technically 6 games and a bye) with a hamstring injury before playing two games and sitting out another three games. With this sort of history, we might be approaching Miles Austin territory with these guys. Please don’t make me explain that joke.
So what we have here is two players with a pretty significant history of an injury that is known to linger, and now they’re both suffering from it again. My hunch is that we probably haven’t seen the last of either Foster of Johnson’s hamstring woes this season. I guess we shouldn’t worry too much… the Houston Hamstrings can always just move some of the offensive burden onto the shoulders of their golden trio of QBs; Fitzpatrick, Keenum, and Savage. Yeah, check those facts, that’s their honest-to-god depth chart. Really, what do they have to lose with a little mascot shakeup at this point?
