Why so many ***** injuries, always?

I heard today that San Fran had only 2 guys on IR.
I know their studs, Alden Smith, Justin Smith, Ahmad Brooks, Patrick Willis, Novorro Bowman, the DB Gholston, and all the others are still out there, physical and healthy.

At the same time, we have 4 starting LBers out in Matthews, Perry, Bishop, Smith, plus Woodson, Shields, CJ Wilson went down tonight. Zombo is always hurt.

On offense, Greg Jennings out all the time, Benson......

I know a few years back, McCarthy fired the trainer and think it was because he was tired of the injuries.
Yet it happens every year to us more than almost (or all) any other teams.
2010 was the same as this..... 2011 had us lose Nick Collins forever, among other ones.

• Is this 100% bad luck, time & time again?
  Is there an equipment problem?
  Is there a vitamin/supplement problem, taking stuff that teams like SF aren't?
• Is there a training problem?

I'm inclined to say it is 100% bad luck, but am getting tired of that.
I want to dish out the pain & punishment, not lose guys like the front line of the marines. This is bullschit.

Yeah.... definitely makes you wonder if the conditioning program is doing something wrong.

I know A.J. Hawk has a Hyperbaric chamber at his house to help him recover faster physically after games.

Does he still have, use that? I remember that when he was a Buckeye, or maybe a rookie.....
If it's as simple as that, there's no excuse for all these other soft fruitcakes to be missing so much time with hammies and "strains", etc.

Is it evil of me (check that, I know it is. But how evil) to want the injuries to be evened out among our competitors?
I'm mad that all the stars on SF stay healthy. All of them.
And I won't feel sad one bit if the Giants suffer the same amount of injuries to their stars.... and why was Nick Collins forced to retire in is prime, like Sterling Sharpe?

I'm very bitter at the "Injury God".

Maybe we're not lying about our injuries or we're being overcautious? Could be the manner in which we work out, could be the way the players are taught to brace for the hits, could be extracurricular from other teams.

You'd be surprised how much muscle training can do with it. If the muscle incurs strain from a direction it's not used to it can be very easily damaged. Could be we are focusing on the "work" muscles and not the "stablize" ones

Nick Collins, neck thing, total fluke. I hate Football God for this one. No forgiveness.
I'm still bitter over the same thing with Sterling Sharpe. And Terrance Murphy. And Robert Brooks, Al Harris, Aaron Kampman.....

Derek Sherrod, Marshall Newhouse's fault, broken leg, can't prevent that (except if Marshall could have blocked).

Andrew Quarless, knee... that again was a fluke. On a kick, just falling to the ground, it bent wrong on it's own.

Greg Jennings, that's one that bears further investigation... too many commercials, or the wrong training? He had been durable until last year.

Cedric Benson, the Lisfranc foot. He also had been durable until this one in week 5. Our bad luck again. His foot was twisted, bent when tackled, and no give in the grass since it was fake grass.

Bryan Bulaga, another total fluke where just moving, his f***ing hip just popped out?

Nick Perry, the wrist. It happened in week one... then he had the knee in week 6... and all of a sudden, the wrist puts him in IR? Strange.

Matthews, the hamstring. He has often had hammy issues, but he rarely misses time.

Desmond Bishop, week one preseason, that was a TORN hamstring, bad luck.....

DJ Smith, we all saw it, he was late-blocked by LT Duane Brown, and bad luck was his foot was planted, and stuck... as it was fake grass, and his knee was torn, season over.

Sam Shields, also in that Houston game I think.... knee.... it looked totally harmless. But he's been out over a month now and doesn't seem back soon.

WTH?

This graph is from http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/nothing-has-changed-about-nfl-injuries/

The number of injured reserve players in 09-10 was 259 = 8/team. In 10-11 338 players on injured reserve = 10.5/team. There are currently 241 players on IR in the NFL (CBS Sports) which works out to ~7.5/team--which will work out to ~10/team if numbers continue on present course. Right now, we have 10; Eagles have 0; Ravens have 17. Teams above average will be countered by teams with below average rates. Medical staffs and trainers talk to each other daily. It's a small fraternity in the NFL, and if anyone is doing something better, or worse, it's common knowledge quickly. So, I'd say it's luck, or lack of it, more than anything else.

Thanks, JBlood for the numbers. When the Packers won the Super Bowl two years ago they did it with just as many injuries. Fact is other teams have gotten better. Injuries also run in cycles, it seems.

God, don't remind me

Net, the number of IR players seems to have little to do with success. As you said, we had 15 on IR in the Championship year; Houston currently has 14, with more than 1/3 of the season and playoffs to go. Minnesota has 1 and the Eagles 0. I haven't spent time looking at it, but it seems we have more key players lost--but that's probably only tunnel vision on my part.

Something came to me. We have a lot of reoccurring injuries, many "muscle related" and people like to attribute them to working out too much. Hawk works out harder than anybody else on our team and that man is NEVER hurt. WTH?! Something is wrong.

I honestly believe most of it is luck, bad lately.
But remember this: Rodgers in his first couple years as a backup, he was brittle.
Now that we've needed him, he's been very durable for us for 5 years now. Bad luck early, good luck lately, with him at least.

It's not all luck though.

I believe our guys miss more time than other teams because we're more cautious to let them back earlier.... some teams seem to let their guys back at 80 or 85%, where we seem closer to 90 or 95% before they're let back.

I think Woodson would have played a game or two by now on most teams.....

I wasn't sure where to put this. But my first thought was "Whaaaaaaaaa?"

3h Terrell Manning ‏@Certified_35
Getting the body worked on before the game sat. #PackersVS49ers tune in http://instagr.am/p/UUmtyWtEOr/
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I was going to make a thread about this.

Our luck can't be this bad for 3 straight seasons. I think it may in part be our Athletic Trainers. Coincidentally, the Head Athletic Trainer I believe was promoted in 2009.

So yeah, it has to be our trainers. Not only do our guys get injured all the time, but they keep getting re-injured and their recovery seems to take forever.

New England does it right. From what I hear they are more personalized with certain players and they have a team chiropractor and acupuncturist.

I'm not saying our guys are incompetent. But I've seen at the collegiate level with schools like Clemson whose Strength and Conditioning program is an absolute joke. I wouldn't rule ineptness at the NFL level.

It's a form of accupuncture called "cupping" -->

Source - http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...cups-acupuncture-traditional-chinese-medicine

Yeah, Don't know if it's Lovat, but something needs to change. Having the most cautious doctor in the league doesn't help either.

Just thought it looked funny

San Francisco is actually missing a lot of starters:

Out for the Post Season
Kendell Hunter (second running back)
Mario Manningham (Wide Receiver)
Kyle Williams (Punt Returner/WR)

Seriously Injured (Non contact/not cleared)

Justin Smith (DT) seriously injured arm but expected to start
David Akers (Kicker) suffering from complications from multiple surgeries, expected to start.
Aldon Smith (LB) not currently cleared but expected to start.
Tarell Brown (CB) not currently cleared but expected to start.
Bruce Miller (FB) not currently cleared but expected to start.

Limited Participation:
Dashon Goldson (S)
Clark Haggans (LV)
Will Tukuafu (DL)


Football is a though game, and at the end of the season, almost everyone is banged up and a few are not coming back.

In lighter news, Junior Seau's necropsy has found that he had brain encephalopathy (basically, the brain slowly disintegrates) which until recently, had only been found in boxers, soldiers exposed to concussive blasts, and others who sustained repeated, hard blows to the head, but is increasingly being found in NFL linemen and hockey enforcers.

Football is a rough game and the NFL is a multi-billion dollar business. I think anyone that plays in a professional football game deserves free health care for life, especially given that some of these players might only get a few hundred thousand dollars in their entire career.

The Packers Head Athletic trainer is Pepper Burruss. He has been in that position since 1993. Rizzo is right, this is football, injuries happen. Ideally things like Matthews hamstring could be a lack of proper training and injury prevention but when you go as hard as these guys do in the weight room and on the field things WILL happen.

Tough game for tough guys. Injuries happen. Some teams get slapped hard with the injury bug, others are just more lucky. I seriously doubt the training staff or any secret methods employed by other teams gives them an edge over us. All the teams have top notch trainers and medical satff. Plus, it's not like we were the only team to suffer with injuries this year. Luck of the draw with injuries.

I don't consider having only three players on IR at this stage to be "a lot".

Everyone else is expected to play. That's pretty damned lucky.

SF is essentially playing their Week 1 starters (less the 3 above, but including five All-Pros) against a team that is currently starting a RB who was selling cars a month ago, an inexperienced center (few starts), a rookie street FA right tackle with 7 games of experience, and a third string ILB.

In total, the Packers are starting 9 (of 22) players with less than two years of real experience.

Not whining here. Just the facts.

Yeah I'm calling Bull. Everybody practiced. Our injury report looked worse than that all year long

It never hurts to be conservative in medicine. Sometimes the conservative approach involves surgery, many times it doesn't. Maybe you are inside the locker room, but those of us outside the locker room have absolutely no idea of the nature of any of the reported injuries; so it would seem impossible to come to any reasonable conclusion regarding the appropriateness of care they require. Of course, the retrospectroscope is 100% accurate.

When MM says that many other teams would play an player we are holding out because of injury, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that we are conservative. Conservative IS a good thing, though sometimes I wonder if we aren't overconservative, though that purely speculative.