It seems every week I come across another article crying about injury rates in the NFL. Writers and fans alike complaining how it is an injustice of some kind that their favorite player is on the sidelines or their favorite team sucks because their best players are always out.
This is football people. Go watch curling or bowling or something if injuries bother you so much. Injuries are a reality of sports, especially so in football. Anytime you put 22 massive men on a field together where the object of the game is to hit or avoid being hit, injuries are a necessary evil.
You cannot have football without injuries. Even an intense game of flag football will likely result in an injury of some kind to one player or another. Love it or hate, it is what it is.
Let's get one thing straight before we continue, NFL players are not victims, nor are fans who are deprived of watching their favorite players every week. Injuries are in no way unfair or unethical.
Players get paid very well to take the risks involved in the game of football, and fans pay of lot of money to watch them take those risks. An NFL player's job is to put their bodies on the line week in and week out. Those who aren't willing to do so don't make it in a game that demands it; and aren't usually fan favorites.
As a New England Patriot fan, I know first hand that injuries can be both a curse and a blessing. Injuries to superstars often give birth to new superstars. An opportunity lost to injury for one player always results in an opportunity for another to shine.
You don't hear too many New England Patriots fans complaining about the injury to Drew Bledsoe that gave a once unknown backup quarterback named Tom Brady his chance to start. Nor would Matt Cassel have likely ever seen his shot had Tom Brady not gone down early this season with a knee injury.
Even though having Tom Brady under center would be nice, as is the case with most injuries, there has been a silver lining of sorts. I have really enjoyed watching Matt Cassel develop and succeed; not to mention the thrill of an actual race in the AFC east again.
As a Patriots fan, losing Tom Brady sucked, but as a football fan you gotta love watching Cassel do his thing. Texans rookie RB Steve Slaton and Eagles rookie wide receiver DeSean Jackson are other great examples of young talent who shined when their numbers were called to fill in for injured starters this season.
Are there ways to reduce the risk of injury to players? It has been suggested that a 14-game schedule and/or less preseason games might reduce the incidence of injury. It may, but it will also result in less football for fans. There may be less injuries, numerically speaking, but less games will have little or no effect on the rate or the severity of injuries in the NFL.
This leaves the league with the other option of rule changes to minimize the risk to players. However, there is only so much the league can do in that regard without dramatically changing the product on the field.
So how can the league make an inherently dangerous game safer without changing the product on the field too dramatically? I think the answer lies in improving equipment, and grassroots training when it comes to tackling.
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