Injury Analysis: Draft Class Injury Analysis
Sports Injury Predictor has partnered with Rotoworld in 2016 to give you an even greater chance of winning your league this coming season. As a quick introduction we have an algorithm that figures out which players are more likely to get injured in the coming season and the injury history of every player in the NFL. Follow us on Twitter @injurypredictor and check out our injury search engine here.
The weeks following the NFL draft are a magical time. Mystery shrouds the latest class to arrive in the NFL. Speculation runs wild as everyone tries to make sense of the selections and the impact they will have on the upcoming season. There are many aspects in trying to determine a rookie’s ceiling. Workload opportunity, depth chart, offensive scheme, competition within the team and athletic ability are the ingredients that make up the recipe for how successful a rookie will be.
Injury represents the absolute floor of every player. The most athletically gifted athlete, atop his depth chart, who has mastered the offensive scheme and who has no competition for carries, is useless both in fantasy and the real world when he is sitting on the bench because he is injured. Injury risk is not the sexiest of outcomes to focus on but it’s important to understand the likelihood of things not working out as planned (risk) so that you can make plans to manage the event if it does occur. It’s also good to get a view of how likely a player is to get injured as this will help you place an accurate value on them on draft day by baking in just how likely he is to fail versus the potential upside offered.
We have four levers that we have found to be good signals of injury probability (you can read more about this here):
1) Experience in the NFL
2) Position being played
3) Projected workload
4) Previous injuries
Recency is king when it comes to assessing the impact of previous injuries. An injury that takes place in 2015 is weighted heavier than an injury that took place in 2013. Keep this in mind as the preseason rolls around. Rookies who get injured in preseason training are way more likely to get injured in the regular season than those rookies who do not.
Quarterback
Quarterback is the “safest” position on the field with the lowest percentage of injuries by position. Unlike last year not many are expected to enter 2016 as the starter. Some may by necessity but the less time most of these QBs spend on the field in Year One the better for their injury outlook in the years to come.
Order of risk:
Carson Wentz (Eagles)
The only QB with any real risk of injury is Carson Wentz. All signs point to the Eagles wanting to sit their number two overall pick for 2016 and allow Sam Bradford to play out the year. Bradford is not exactly the pinnacle of health, missing nine games in 2013 (ACL), all of 2014 (same ACL) and two games in 2015 (shoulder). If Bradford persists with the drama now that a highly drafted rookie is holding his clipboard, his production outlook for 2016 is up in the air. Chase Daniel is the backup on record but having only attempted 77 passes in six seasons for a 1:1 touchdown to interception record, it’s fair to say there is a good chance Wentz sees the field this season if Bradford fails.
Wentz missed most of 2015 with a broken wrist bone in his throwing hand that required surgery during the season. On a common sense level, it is fair to assume that QBs have their throwing wrist injured frequently due to the nature of their occupation and the 300 pound linebackers whose job it is to bat down those passes. Oddly enough this is a very rare injury for an NFL QB to suffer. So rare in fact that in our database of thousands of injuries we have no incidences of this injury occurring to a QB.
Without the data it’s impossible to say why but perhaps it’s survivor bias: quarterbacks who injure their throwing hands/wrists in college are not drafted. Or perhaps QBs in the NFL don’t injure their throwing wrists due to Wolff’s Law (the idea that bones get stronger when exposed to stress as found here).
Whatever the reason is you can assume with a fair amount of certainty that having a structural weakness on a critical part of your anatomy required to do your day job is not a good thing, generally speaking. Our injury prediction algorithm has Wentz as a medium risk in the event he takes the field in 2016.
It’s worth noting that aside from the rare wrist injury Wentz is a unicorn in several ways. Most QBs who played in lowly Missouri Valley Conference who failed to beat out the starter in their freshman and sophomore year, missed the bulk of their final year in college and who are 24 years old at the time of the draft are not selected in the first two picks.
Hopefully Bradford will stay healthy this year and Wentz can be eased into a starting role.
Running Back
Order of risk:
3) C.J. Prosise
Keith Marshall (Redskins)
While Marshall was picked late in the draft (7th round) he has landed in a fantastic spot to get a shot at starting. Athletically gifted and on a team that lacks a true, tested bell cow the fact he went so late has a lot to do with his detailed injury history. Below are the injuries he suffered at college:
- 2013 – Torn ACL
- 2014 – Severe ankle sprain caused him to miss 10 games
- 2015 – MCL and ankle sprain caused him to miss two games
Players with durability issues at the college level generally tend to struggle in the NFL.
Jordan Howard (Bears)
Howard seemingly has a straight shot at being the two-down back in Chicago as a straight line between the tackles powerhouse. This type of running comes with risk and the fact that Howard had two injuries on separate occasions last year is a warning that he could lack the durability to sustain long periods of being “the guy” for the Bears. Last year he suffered from the following injuries:
- Ankle sprain – Missed four games
- MCL sprain – Missed two games
Our model weights injuries that take place in the same year heavier than injuries that are separated by a season or more which is why Howard comes with the second highest amount of risk in the RB class of ‘16.
