Sports Injury Analytics Blog

Where we are always probably doubtful

 
What is the average NFL career length? 5.5-6 Years.
The average NFL career length is approximately 5.5-6 years, with the median around 5 years.
Jan 28, 2022
 
Good-Faith NFL Player Vaccination Worries, and Honest Responses
We're hearing a lot of different lines of thinking from "anti-vax" or "vaccine hesitant" NFL players. Most of them, honestly, are in good faith. Yes, some are conspiracy theories you can't engage with and can't budge them on. But a lot more are simple misconceptions or misunderstandings based on the confusing nature of all this as well as an environment swirling with misinformation. As Dr. Thom Mayer of the NFLPA put it, these are "grown-ass men" with grown-ass questions.
Jul 23, 2021
 
What Should Make Returning Leagues Shut Down for COVID-19?
Updated 7/2/2020 at 2:00pm ET
Jun 30, 2020
 
Covid-19: How Can Sports Come Back?
Updated 5/27/2020 at 9:30am ET
Apr 17, 2020

What Can You Calculate With Player Tracking Data? A List of Metrics.
The hottest commodity in the sports analytics world right now is player tracking data. It’s called different things in different sports (e.g. “Next Gen Stats” in the NFL), but it all boils down to somehow measuring exactly where every player is on the field/pitch/court in very short intervals (e.g. 10 times per second).
Feb 11, 2020

Irregularities in a Study on Soccer Headgear And Concussions
This week the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) published the results of a randomized trial of headgear to reduce concussions in soccer players.
May 19, 2019

Diagnosing CTE in the Living: Proper Control Groups and the Importance of Your Research Question
A very interesting if preliminary paper looking at the possibility of using positron emission tomography (PET) scans (similar to a CT or MRI) to measure accumulations of a protein called tau in people’s brains was published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Apr 11, 2019

‘Why Attack Football? Girls’ Soccer Has More Concussions!’: A Study in Poor Reasoning and Stats
When I started in football injury epidemiology I focused on muscle, ligament, and bone issues. I shied away from brain injuries.
Mar 12, 2019
 
Article Review: Pitching a Complete Game and DL Risk
Despite the name of this blog being NFL injury analytics, since I’m now spending at least a third of my time working in baseball I’m going to start writing about that, too.
May 30, 2018

New Sports Performance Technologies: The 4 Key Questions Teams Need to Ask
I’ve had some thoughts on this topic for awhile, and then this article from a couple scientists with, I believe, the San Antonio Spurs came out in the Strength and Conditioning Journal. It does a great job at summarizing the key issues, but I wanted to try and distill it down to a 4-question framework that I use when evaluating a new sports performance technology for teams that I consult for.
Nov 5, 2017

Just How Dangerous IS the NFL vs. Other Sports?
Turns out, yeah, pretty dangerous, actually.
Jun 6, 2017
 
Checking a Reported Drop in Starting QB Injuries in 2016: Definitions and Counts
I saw a remarkable stat reported in Pro Football Talk (PFT) this morning: that starting QBs missed only 35 games in 2016, vs. 76/77/59 in 2013-15, respectively. The claim is sourced to Peter King’s MMQB column this morning, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a source document for the actual numbers. Per King, the NFL’s Competition Committee views these data as evidence the new QB protection rules are having their intended effect.
Mar 27, 2017

The ‘Post-Probable’ Injury Report Era: Full-Season Update
Hey, long time. Been awhile. How are the kids? Childish? That’s good.
Mar 1, 2017

Is it Really Too Soon to Judge Roberto Aguayo?
I threatened to do this occasionally in my introductory post, but steel yourselves for a football analytics post that has nothing to do with injuries. You have ESPN’s Bill Barnwell and my friend and colleague Daniel Adler to blame for this.
Dec 8, 2016

Projecting ‘Questionable’ Players in the Post-Probable Era
In my last post I began looking at the effects of removing “Probable” from the game status portion of the NFL Injury Report this year. This left only three categories for players to fall into: “Questionable,” “Doubtful,” and “Out”.
Nov 10, 2016

The Effects of Eliminating ‘Probable’ from the NFL Injury Report
Less than a month before the season began, the NFL announced a few substantial changes to how it handled injuries. The biggest one – at least from a fan(tasy football) perspective – was a modification to the game status report component of the NFL injury report: eliminating the “Probable” designation for how likely players are to play in their upcoming game.1
Nov 6, 2016

‘No Indication of Elevated Suicide Risk’ in NFL Retirees; So Does Football Not Cause Suicides?
A recent study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine (AJSM) caught my eye last week. The study, from three researchers with the federal National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the CDC, found that retired NFL players had a 53% lower rate of suicide (95% confidence interval 18%-76%) versus a comparison group.
Oct 24, 2016

Were There Fewer Concussions in the 2016 Preseason? A Study in Uncertainty and Trends
I almost named this blog “Probably Doubtful” since one of our cardinal reasoning sins as humans is overconfidence. We routinely don’t or improperly consider the uncertainty we have in anything, numbers included. Socrates wasn’t talking about modern statistics when he said “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” but we’d all probably lead better lives if we said this to ourselves once a day.
Oct 20, 2016
No matching items