Do we finally take a look at our Trainers/Med Staff after this season?

[Southpaw]

Every year since probably 09' we have a staggering amount of players with injuries and their recovery time tables always extend beyond what is expected.

Granted some of these injuries have been part of playing the game, but things like muscle pulls, and even the knee ligament tears can sometimes be tied to how the players are being worked out. and of course the length of recovery for players with injuries is just too much to ignore now. It can't be bad luck anymore. Not when it's happening every season and we end up having to dig into the Practice Squad.

I mean how do professionally hired Medical Staff and Athletic Trainers not know that Charles Johnson had a torn ACL? How do you explain that level of negligence and incompetence?

 

[GoPGo]

I mean how do professionally hired Medical Staff and Athletic Trainers not know that Charles Johnson had a torn ACL? How do you explain that level of negligence and incompetence?

First, we don't know when it happened. Second, are you a radiologist? It's easy to assume than any ligament tear should be obvious from a layman's perspective, but is that really the case? Probably not. Physicians miss things on x-rays, CT scans and MRIs all the time. My wife had 3 x-rays when she was in high school before they were able to see that she had a broken wrist.

 

[FrankRizzo]

First, we don't know when it happened. Second, are you a radiologist? It's easy to assume than any ligament tear should be obvious from a layman's perspective, but is that really the case? Probably not. Physicians miss things on x-rays, CT scans and MRIs all the time. My wife had 3 x-rays when she was in high school before they were able to see that she had a broken wrist.

There's competence, and there's incompetence.
Some do their jobs well, some have a bad day.
Your wife had bad service.

The Packers have some problems clearly.

 

[sjb12681]

The problem isn't this season. This stretches back to our super bowl year.

Its easy to say snake bite. Its time to let another training staff be less snake bit.

We have cut the cord on 1st rounder picks with less injury history than this. Too many hammies. Too many small time injuries that should be 4 weeks turning into 8 weeks.

The shear amount is a problem. Any player that °just° kept getting an acl sprain, just a pulled groin, just a back spasm would be cut loose.

These guys have cost us DOZENS of prolific starters. For what's racking up to seasons worth of missed games at a record setting number.

Next man (trainer) up.

 

[Bus Cook]

TT will draft one on day three. You can't just throw money at every need. We have to sign Raji, Finley and more.

 

[GoPGo]

There's competence, and there's incompetence.
Some do their jobs well, some have a bad day.
Your wife had bad service.

The Packers have some problems clearly.

I beg to differ. Things are not as black and white as you think. What medical training do you have, Frank?

 

[lambeaulambo]

First, we don't know when it happened. Second, are you a radiologist? It's easy to assume than any ligament tear should be obvious from a layman's perspective, but is that really the case? Probably not. Physicians miss things on x-rays, CT scans and MRIs all the time. My wife had 3 x-rays when she was in high school before they were able to see that she had a broken wrist.

Not exactly a nice response...the difference here is they work for the Green Bay Packers!!! They are expected to NOT miss this stuff.

 

[Trapped In Vikingville]

First, we don't know when it happened. Second, are you a radiologist? It's easy to assume than any ligament tear should be obvious from a layman's perspective, but is that really the case? Probably not. Physicians miss things on x-rays, CT scans and MRIs all the time. My wife had 3 x-rays when she was in high school before they were able to see that she had a broken wrist.

I hope they don't, "miss things all the time"! Maybe the Packers just hire the ones at the bottom percentile of their class. I don't want to hear any excuses, these people are paid to do a job! Do the job, or get out and go play doctor in GoPGo's town. He seems to find it acceptable. Seems very bush league to me.

 

[Bus Cook]

The posters bashing our med staff are the same ones bashing Kuhn. Dont' forget how many times Kuhn doesn't muff a punt and how many player don't get injured.

 

[Trapped In Vikingville]

I wouldn't say that I bashed Kuhn for making a boneheaded play. He has been playing long enough that he should know not to touch the ball in that situation. I'm not about to make any excuses for him either. Bashing? If you think so.

 

[FrankRizzo]

I beg to differ. Things are not as black and white as you think. What medical training do you have, Frank?

I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

So basically I'm Mayo Clinic Ready.

 

[TJV]

Before the season McCarthy talked about preventing injuries. He focused on changing the schedule of TC and preseason to (as the author wrote) “help battle fatigue and, in turn, prevent injuries”. Here’s what I think is the “money quote” from the article:

"We have building blocks in our program and one of them is availability and accountability, and we have not hit the target on availability two out of the last three years," McCarthy said. "It’s definitely a point of emphasis. Most of it is really just the way it goes. Some injuries can’t be avoided. Sometimes you have good years and sometimes not so good years, so we’re doing everything we can. Trust me, we’ve looked at everything involved in our program. You’ll see some things on our practice field tomorrow morning that will show that we’ve made some adjustments and we’re doing everything we can to address it."

I don’t think Clay’s injured thumb, Cobb’s broken bone or Perry’s broken foot could have been prevented by the medical/training staff. But the Packers have over the past several seasons sustained a lot of muscle pulls and strains, particularly of the hamstring variety. Those seem to be more preventable. But here’s the problem IMO: How do the Packers separate preventable injuries vs. others. And once that’s decided, how do the Packers compare to the rest of the league regarding preventable injuries? I don’t have the expertise or resources to determine either but without knowing those answers its difficult for me to assign blame to the Packers’ staff.

While I don’t think the Packers’ history can completely be blamed on just being ‘snake bit’, it seems to me (from the perspective of being a Packers fanatic) the Packers have had more than an average number of what I consider to be non-preventable injuries. However I haven’t looked at any other teams in this regard and injuries to Packers are magnified because I am so focused on the Packers. But to answer the question posed in the title of this thread, yes I think the Packers have to look at their staff. But I'll bet if McCarthy were asked, he'd say he does that every off season.

 

[jaybadger82]

I'm no injury expert, either. I expect McCarthy to say the right things to the press and agree that it's difficult to determine how many of our injuries are really attributable to shortcomings with training staff.

Anyone know how much the Packers training staff makes? -How these salaries compare to other franchises?

 

[12theTruth]

YES-- but that is something they should be reviewing after each and every season.

I'd hope they'd conduct an independent review of their methods and procedures. Other teams are also experiencing injuries at a high rate too BUT we shouldn't let that lull us into a false impression that its just to be expected or that it is "just part of the game"

 

[BorderRivals.com]

I've struggled with this too. Because, injuries are part of the game and there are several teams this season with bad injuries and a rash of injuries too. But, what separates us is that this has been the M.O. for this team for 3 of the last 4 years. Beyond the argument that there are preventative and just plain football injuries (which is beyond all of our expertise), some of it may lie in the type of players we have. The reason the 49ers haven't gotten a lot of injuries (for the most part) is they have absolute beasts. They are the maulers rather than the maulees. Usually, the aggressor is no the guy that gets injured. In contrast, we have more finesse players. Now, our aggression and tenacity has changed this year and we still have key injuries, which somewhat discredits this argument. But, I think that it is a factor worth considering.

Bottom line, I hope the Packers take a good and hard look at not just the training staff, but also the offseason program they implement. Because they have to realize, we can't simply be the most unlucky team 3 of the last 4 years. Some of it has to be related to what they are doing and what they can control.

 

[Bagadeez04]

This is a tough one for me...I believe injuries are more often than not the result of bad luck or being in the wing place at the wrong time.

However, to ignore that this team has been been among the most injured in the league for two the last three years and well on their way to another injury played season, is naive.

I don't pretend to know what the problem is...is this team soft or are the trainers at fault? I don't know, but there is a problem and it needs to be seriously examined by Packer leadership. I feel like they've been just paying lip service to the problem while actually changing nothing.

 

[JBlood]

Players are bigger, stronger, and faster than years ago. Much of it due to weight training and nutritional supplements--legal and illegal. Creatine, for instance, is legal and athletes in high schools around the country use it. It does increase muscle mass and strength. There are no long term studies on its effect on the musculo-tendinous unit, but many think the increase in muscle and tendon injuries may be caused by such nutritional agents. It would seem intuitive that stronger muscles risk tearing. For those of us in their 60s, weight lifting was frowned upon for fear of becoming a "f#*king muscle bound athlete", as one of our coaches so elegantly pronounced. He may have been correct.

If interested, people should check Harvard Sports Analysis on injuries in the NFL http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/nothing-has-changed-about-nfl-injuries/

Bottom line: there are between 2000 and 2500 injuries in the NFL per year. With those numbers, it would be lucky for a player to NOT be injured during any season.

I don't think there's anything wrong with our trainers or medical staff. As far as the Johnson ACL, if a player has no instability on testing, no complaints, and is running around on a knee, why would you get an MRI? Add to this that 10-15 % of athletes function just fine without an ACL, so some players--admittedly more linemen than others--will not need reconstruction anyway. Johnson may be one of these players.

 

[GoPGo]

I hope they don't, "miss things all the time"! Maybe the Packers just hire the ones at the bottom percentile of their class. I don't want to hear any excuses, these people are paid to do a job! Do the job, or get out and go play doctor in GoPGo's town. He seems to find it acceptable. Seems very bush league to me.

You don't seem to understand that technology has its limitations. Sometimes things simply don't show up on the MRI as you would expect and it has nothing to do with the physician examining the images. Physicians aren't any more perfect than anyone else whether they are employed by the Packers or not. Same for any other sports franchise.

 

[GoPGo]

These guys have cost us DOZENS of prolific starters. For what's racking up to seasons worth of missed games at a record setting number.

Next man (trainer) up.

Okay. WHO? You want some young pup fresh out of medical school? Some other team's castoff? Every team has injuries. IT'S FOOTBALL. This whole notion is utter nonsense.

We have 3 hamstrings. All are close to returning. We have successfully rehabbed 2 or 3 others in short time.

The other injuries are:

Starks - knee
Perry - broken foot
Jones - PCL sprain
Taylor - knee sprain
Matthews - broken thumb

Those are all on-the-field injuries. There's not a trainer in the world who can prevent those from happening. With all the knee-jerking going on, I'm surprise some of you guys haven't torn your ACLs.

 

[Morrow]

I agree that the focus should be on the more common problems we have had over the last few years with hamstrings.

The other injuries during the games can't be controlled by anyone.

It might be interesting to look at where the majority of the hamstring injuries are occurring. If its on our practice field the majority of the time for example, maybe it has something to do with the type of field?

 

[FrankRizzo]

GREEN BAY – Could the Green Bay Packers really be in peril of not having enough healthy players to put 46 guys in uniform Sunday against the Cleveland Browns at Lambeau Field?

Well, yes.

NFL teams carry 53 players on their rosters during the regular season. On game days, only 46 are permitted to dress, so seven players are declared inactive.

With four players already having been ruled out – outside linebackers Clay Matthews and Nick Perry, tight end Ryan Taylor and running back James Starks – that takes care of four of the seven inactives.

“I wish you wouldn't ask me that question. We'll see,” McCarthy said when asked about the possibility. “You must have heard (general manager) Ted (Thompson) and I talking earlier. We'll see what happens.”

McCarthy said he didn’t remember a single game in his career where his team didn’t field the full game-day roster. He said special teams would be the area that would feel it the worst.

 

[HyponGrey]

In pro circles our training staff is still looked at as elite. My guess? No. Would I like to see every one of them fired? Yes. No matter how irrational or incredibly stupid some might think that is. I need a scapegoat GDI!!!

 

[lambeaulambo]

Players are bigger, stronger, and faster than years ago. Much of it due to weight training and nutritional supplements--legal and illegal. Creatine, for instance, is legal and athletes in high schools around the country use it. It does increase muscle mass and strength. There are no long term studies on its effect on the musculo-tendinous unit, but many think the increase in muscle and tendon injuries may be caused by such nutritional agents. It would seem intuitive that stronger muscles risk tearing. For those of us in their 60s, weight lifting was frowned upon for fear of becoming a "f#*king muscle bound athlete", as one of our coaches so elegantly pronounced. He may have been correct.

If interested, people should check Harvard Sports Analysis on injuries in the NFL http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/nothing-has-changed-about-nfl-injuries/

Bottom line: there are between 2000 and 2500 injuries in the NFL per year. With those numbers, it would be lucky for a player to NOT be injured during any season.

I don't think there's anything wrong with our trainers or medical staff. As far as the Johnson ACL, if a player has no instability on testing, no complaints, and is running around on a knee, why would you get an MRI? Add to this that 10-15 % of athletes function just fine without an ACL, so some players--admittedly more linemen than others--will not need reconstruction anyway. Johnson may be one of these players.

Correct me if I am wrong, but when a player is drafted or signed by a team, are they not subject to a thorough physical which usually includes, yep, an MRI on both knees? I understand if there is no cause and effect relationship that exists, there would be no need for it. But this certainly plays into the opinions that say the trainers are not being diligent enough in their examinations that is part of their job to determine health? Makes sense to be diligent when it comes to this.

 

[HyponGrey]

Not subject to physical when signing if player has been practicing with a team

 

[7thFloorRA]

I believe you blindly sign guys off the PS. The physical comes 2nd. You can not do a physical on another team's property or something.

CJ's ACL is a freakish thing. If he got an MRI I believe it is only 98 percent accurate. Depending on how his leg is sitting the view can be misleading 2 percent of the time as it is a 2 dimensional image. He also probably had a Bulaga type situation where he had done some of the damage a long time ago and there was scar tissue built up in the knee that was misleading on the MRI as well. He also had to get through one of the simplest manual tests in the anterior drawer test. That is what you see them doing on the field after most knee injuries. He had to have been muscle guarding against that test as well because your knee joint moves like a loose rubber band when you are not guarding. Then we get to him actually being able to run and cut and get in and out of breaks every day at practice. I read that they thought it was an IT band injury in camp. I've seen people play without ACL's though so it is possible....just an extremely weird situation.