Season-Ending Injuries Are In Vogue

Added on Sep 15, 2010 by Scott in

NFL

It’s been a rough week for several NFL teams. Over a dozen players have been lost to season-ending injuries, which has left personnel departments scrambling to find competent replacements. Obviously, this is nothing new to professional football, but it sure does seem like the number of guys going down is noticeably higher than in recent years. It will likely balance out in the coming weeks. However, that’s little consolation to those teams hit hardest by the injury bug.

Going back to the tail end of preseason and up until yesterday, the following players have seen their 2010 seasons end prematurely: Montario Hardesty, Donnie Avery, Hunter Hillenmeyer, Jamaal Jackson, Leonard Weaver, Justin Harrell, Kris Jenkins, Ryan Grant, Conner Barwin, Aaron Berry, Max Unger and Bob Sanders. I probably omitted a couple, but you get the point.

In addition, Matthew Stafford, Kevin Kolb, Stewart Bradley, Jared Odrick, Ted Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez could miss multiple games due to various ailments sustained during opening week. Now, when you factor in each of the 32 teams carry 53-man rosters, 20 or so injuries from a pool of 1700 players is small potatoes. If the number were say 50 or 100, then panic buttons would be pressed league-wide. Thankfully, that’s not the case.

Again, it’s the percentage of season-ending hurts that piqued my interest. My hope is the trend comes to a stop sooner than later. Watching inexperienced backups and emergency castoffs receiver significant snaps on Sundays doesn’t translate to crisp, clean football.

Take a rest, gridiron Gods. You’ve collected enough sacrifices for one month.