N.F.L. Fast Forward
2 Weeks, and Injuries Have Already Taken Toll
By JUDY BATTISTA
Published: September 20, 2010
The cart came out Sunday and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dennis Dixon was gone, joining a pretty competitive team of players — if only they were not all injured — in the training room.
Dixon’s knee was the latest casualty in the first two weeks of the season, which have produced eye-popping and sobering injury reports.
The Philadelphia Eagles lost two players to injured reserve in Week 1 and two more, including their starting quarterback, Kevin Kolb, to concussions. The Green Bay Packers will be without running back Ryan Grant for the season. In Detroit, Matthew Stafford and his shoulder are sidelined for several weeks. The Jets, after watching Kris Jenkins’s knee buckle for the second straight year, sent a parade of stars to the locker room Sunday, led by the All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis, whose holdout had produced an expected result: a fragile hamstring.
Ever since the N.F.L. introduced the idea of going to an 18-game regular season almost two years ago — a huge part of negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement — the cavalcade of carnage has led to an inevitable question: Will anybody be left standing when it’s over?
Injuries take a mental toll even on those who have not sustained them. They are demoralizing to teammates and time-consuming for coaches who must fill the gaps.
Dallas Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware said he watched the scroll of injuries on television last week.
“By the fifth game, you’re already dying,” said Ware, who plays virtually every defensive snap. “By the 10th or 11th week, guys are struggling to get on the field. You can’t go 100 miles per hour the whole season. Your mind can’t. Your body can’t. Add two more and you’re going to shorten the life span of a lot of careers. A lot of guys are already beaten up.”
John Mara, the Giants’ president and a member of the competition committee, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from injuries in the first two weeks. He said that more injuries happen early in the season — players like Revis are still getting into game condition — that league-generated statistics have shown injuries level off and that once the playoffs start, players play through injuries they might have taken a few weeks off for early in the season. But Mara said the committee was continually pondering ways to make the game safer.
“Every year, player safety issue is the topic we spend the most time on,” he said. “It’s an emphasis we have every year, whether it’s 16 or 18 games.”
Among owners, there is likely to be a push from some for increasing the roster size, including on game days, and increasing the size of the practice squad to reduce the time regular players must be on the field for practice. Owners who do not want to add payroll will probably resist, but the appeal of adding a few players at minimal salaries — in exchange for keeping the best players fresher for games, rather than wasting their energy in practices — might make the proposal sellable.
Here is an example of why expanding the rosters would help. When the Giants lost both tight ends to injuries in the first game, they had to cut a linebacker just so they could bring up a tight end to have a body at practice. But it would also give teams the chance to develop younger players.
Expanded rosters might also mean that the injured reserve rules will stay the same because the larger roster would allow teams to carry injured players on the active roster without worrying about being short-handed for a game. Think Denver wouldn’t have liked that option with Elvis Dumervil, who might have been able to make it back after tearing his pectoral muscle for a late-season playoff push?
Of greater concern to players is limiting the required off-season work.
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