Belichick's mockery of the injury report. (1 Viewer)

[#@%&$!?]

Saw this blurb on fanball:

The NewsTom Brady has had a phantom shoulder injury that has now lingered over three seasons. Brady appears on the Patriots week one injury report as "probable – shoulder."Our ViewBrady set what is believed to be a modern day record by being listed as "probable – shoulder" for 29 consecutive weeks until week 15 of last year, when he actually had a legitimate injury and was listed as questionable with a "right shoulder/shin" injury. There is obviously nothing wrong with his throwing arm, but it will be interesting to see if Bill Belichick continues treating his injury report like a joke all year. By week 17 Brady will be just one week away from the magical, and likely unbeatable, 50 mark. Good luck, Tom!

What's the point of the injury report if the NFL doesn't crack down on stuff like this? Can the NFL even do anything? If they turn a blind eye, what's to stop other coaches from putting up garbage info every week? side rant - Is Belichick's use of the injury report really a smart tactic? If he fibs once in a while it might throw the other teams off, but when you make it a habitual practice, what's the point?

 

[Warpig]

Did he break the record Steve McNair had? I thought McNair has been "questionable" since he stepped on the field.

 

[Keys Myaths]

GB Bill.

 

[#@%&$!?]

Did he break the record Steve McNair had? I thought McNair has been "questionable" since he stepped on the field.

I know Steve's a regular on the injury report, but IIRC, he actually was always dinged up.

 

[Werker]

Love it!

 

[GroveDiesel]

As a Bills fan I'm imagining this dream scenario (although I don't truly wish injury on Brady):

Brady actually does hurt his shoulder. It's a permanent injury and he must retire.

Pats are forced to cut him and must reach an injury settlement with Brady.

Brady sues the Pats for his entire contract by arguing that the Pats obviously knew that there was a problem for 3+ years but never did anything to help him.

Brady wins and the Pats must cough up his entire remaining contract because of their little game that they're playing.

 

[BGP]

As a Bills fan I'm imagining this dream scenario (although I don't truly wish injury on Brady):Brady actually does hurt his shoulder. It's a permanent injury and he must retire.Pats are forced to cut him and must reach an injury settlement with Brady.Brady sues the Pats for his entire contract by arguing that the Pats obviously knew that there was a problem for 3+ years but never did anything to help him.Brady wins and the Pats must cough up his entire remaining contract because of their little game that they're playing.

Belichick would just draft some QB in round 7 and turn him into a pro bowler.

 

[CrossEyed]

Did you see Indy's injury report? Half the team was listed as questionable.

 

[porkins]

I see nothing wrong with it.

More coaches should probably do this.

Every player is probable if you think about it.

LT will probably play this week.

BB is just preparing for the worst.

Mass drivers are pretty dangerous.

 

[GoFishTN]

Belichick is a genius and the greatest coach in NFL history, so this is just another one of his brilliant, unmatched, historical coaching moves!

 

[Bojang0301]

Jeff Fisher is the worst... everyone is questionable.

 

[redman]

How exactly would you crack down on this practice anyway?

The only thing that occurs to me would be a retrospective analysis of teams' injury reports to check them for statistical inaccuracy (i.e. "doubtful" players in fact played 43% of the time or something). However, even if you found such innaccuracies, you're still dealing with injury predictions, so that alone wouldn't necessarily amount to a team being anything more than mediocre at such predictions.

 

[Jagerbomber]

I see nothing wrong with it.

:X

 

[#@%&$!?]

Ok, so a few coaches are guilty of this tactic. Is there anything that the NFL can do to regulate this? If not, then what's the point of the injury report? Just a formality?

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Jeff Fisher is the worst... everyone is questionable.

Very true. One important difference between Belichick and Fisher last year:Fisher listed 44 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, all of them as Questionable. 32 of them played, or 72.7%. Belichick listed 49 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, only 31 as Questionable. Of that 31, only 16 played, for a 51.6% play rate. The league average play rate for Questionable fantasy starters was 50.4%. Conclusion: Fisher deserves your ire much more than Belichick.

 

[delusional]

didnt skeletor get fined for something like this last season or the one prior

 

[QuizGuy66]

Jeff Fisher is the worst... everyone is questionable.

Very true. One important difference between Belichick and Fisher last year:Fisher listed 44 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, all of them as Questionable. 32 of them played, or 72.7%. Belichick listed 49 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, only 31 as Questionable. Of that 31, only 16 played, for a 51.6% play rate. The league average play rate for Questionable fantasy starters was 50.4%. Conclusion: Fisher deserves your ire much more than Belichick.

Actually you bring up a great point. This information actually would be very useful, by coach. Do you know where it might be or did you just spend way too much time tracking this yourself? -QG

 

[Winston Wolfe]

The Patriots were fined several years back because of not disclosing injuries on the injury report one of them being Tom Brady with a bruised shoulder.

 

[culdeus]

Jeff Fisher is the worst... everyone is questionable.

Very true. One important difference between Belichick and Fisher last year:Fisher listed 44 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, all of them as Questionable. 32 of them played, or 72.7%. Belichick listed 49 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, only 31 as Questionable. Of that 31, only 16 played, for a 51.6% play rate. The league average play rate for Questionable fantasy starters was 50.4%. Conclusion: Fisher deserves your ire much more than Belichick.

Where in the hell did you pull that out of?

 

[videoguy505]

At this point, it's practically superstition. Don't mess with what works.

What's funny is that some sites, like Sportsline IIRC, multiply projections by injury factor--if Brady is ideally projected for a 20 pt game, they multiply by the 75% probable factor for a 15 point projection. If he's "questionable" they'd list his projection at 10. Doubtful at 5.

Enough users brought it up that they changed it for Brady only, he's always at 100% if he's listed as "probable".

 

[shadow2k]

Brady has had legitimate shoulder problems for years. He undergoes some sort of shoulder surgery almost every off-season. But yeah, listing him on the injury report every week is a joke, we all know he's going to play.

 

[GregR_2]

...Every player is probable if you think about it.LT will probably play this week....

If the defintion of Probable on the injury report meant "likely", then every player would be probable.However, the NFL definition is 75% likely to play. Unless you're saying that Belichik really expected Brady to not play 1/4 of those games he marked him as probable, then he was giving a dishonest injury report.

 

[PMENFAN]

The Patriots were fined several years back because of not disclosing injuries on the injury report one of them being Tom Brady with a bruised shoulder.

I think that's why Brady's been on it every week since. Everybody who is treated by the training staff has to be on the injury report, regardless of whether there's any chance of not playing. Brady was checked out, or something, by the trainer, for a bruised shoulder, they didn't report it, because there was no chance he was not going to play, and it gives defenses something to go after. The league found out, fined the Pats. Brady went on the injury report shortly after, and has been on it every since. The Broncos also were fined around the same time, and also usually have an extensive list. For a hangnail, you'll see foot. Is it a mockery, or is it required? It doesn't require full discolsure until Sunday AM, or gameday. And, the way they play it now, there's nothing the league can do.

 

[SSOG]

didnt skeletor get fined for something like this last season or the one prior

It was three seasons ago (Plummer's first year), and it really wasn't comparable at all.During a game, Jake Plummer got hit and injured his shoulder. When a reporter asked him IN-GAME, Shanahan announced that Plummer had suffered a concussion. He did this because Denver did not have a third QB on the roster (Rod Smith was serving as Denver's emergency QB in case the #2 guy- Steve Beurlein, iirc- went down). Plummer's shoulder injury was not extremely severe, and if Beurlein got injured, Shanny was prepared to send Plummer back into the game. If he said that Plummer had an injured shoulder, then he was afraid that the opposing defense would be targetting his shoulder on every single play.After the game, Shanny fessed up and got fined. I never got what the big deal was. The whole reason for the injury report is because the NFL realizes what a golden goose gambling and fantasy football is for them. In-game injuries would have absolutely zero impact on gamblers or FFers, because all bets and roster submissions close at kickoff. I suppose the NFL fined Shanahan because they wanted to pretend that there was some other reason for the injury report.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Jeff Fisher is the worst... everyone is questionable.

Very true. One important difference between Belichick and Fisher last year:Fisher listed 44 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, all of them as Questionable. 32 of them played, or 72.7%. Belichick listed 49 fantasy starters on the injury report last season, only 31 as Questionable. Of that 31, only 16 played, for a 51.6% play rate. The league average play rate for Questionable fantasy starters was 50.4%. Conclusion: Fisher deserves your ire much more than Belichick.

Where in the hell did you pull that out of?

My freelance article. It hasn't been posted yet for some reason. Checking with Clayton and JB to see if it will or if I should just post it here.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

At this point, it's practically superstition. Don't mess with what works.What's funny is that some sites, like Sportsline IIRC, multiply projections by injury factor--if Brady is ideally projected for a 20 pt game, they multiply by the 75% probable factor for a 15 point projection. If he's "questionable" they'd list his projection at 10. Doubtful at 5. Enough users brought it up that they changed it for Brady only, he's always at 100% if he's listed as "probable".

Another important point from my article:Small sample sizes aside, it seems that players perform at almost the same level when playing hurt as when not playing hurt, where hurt is equal to being listed on the injury report. The overall difference last year for fantasy starters was only a .2 point oer game difference from their yearly average.

 

[bullitt]

The whole reason for the injury report is because the NFL realizes what a golden goose gambling and fantasy football is for them. I suppose the NFL fined Shanahan because they wanted to pretend that there was some other reason for the injury report.

 

[Keys Myaths]

At this point, it's practically superstition. Don't mess with what works.What's funny is that some sites, like Sportsline IIRC, multiply projections by injury factor--if Brady is ideally projected for a 20 pt game, they multiply by the 75% probable factor for a 15 point projection. If he's "questionable" they'd list his projection at 10. Doubtful at 5. Enough users brought it up that they changed it for Brady only, he's always at 100% if he's listed as "probable".

Another important point from my article:Small sample sizes aside,

Then I won't draw any conclusions from it, either way.If the sample size isn't large enough to draw any real statistical conclusions, you CAN'T draw anything from it except conjecture.

 

[SteveUK]

Did you see Indy's injury report? Half the team was listed as questionable.

I noticed that too. 19 players are questionable. Hard to believe before a season kick off.I don't recall Indy being one of the Injury Report offenders in the past. Is Dungy trying to be a Fisher?

 

[ConstruxBoy]

At this point, it's practically superstition. Don't mess with what works.What's funny is that some sites, like Sportsline IIRC, multiply projections by injury factor--if Brady is ideally projected for a 20 pt game, they multiply by the 75% probable factor for a 15 point projection. If he's "questionable" they'd list his projection at 10. Doubtful at 5. Enough users brought it up that they changed it for Brady only, he's always at 100% if he's listed as "probable".

Another important point from my article:Small sample sizes aside,

Then I won't draw any conclusions from it, either way.If the sample size isn't large enough to draw any real statistical conclusions, you CAN'T draw anything from it except conjecture.

True, and I'll post the whole conjecture article here tomorrow.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Did you see Indy's injury report? Half the team was listed as questionable.

I noticed that too. 19 players are questionable. Hard to believe before a season kick off.I don't recall Indy being one of the Injury Report offenders in the past. Is Dungy trying to be a Fisher?

Last year IND only listed 16 fantasy starters on the injury report all year and just 3 of those were listed as Questionable, so something is up there.In addition, last year week 1 had the lowest number of fantasy starters on the injury report as any week all season, only 16. So something is up this year. Maybe more coaches abusing it?

 

[SSOG]

At this point, it's practically superstition. Don't mess with what works.What's funny is that some sites, like Sportsline IIRC, multiply projections by injury factor--if Brady is ideally projected for a 20 pt game, they multiply by the 75% probable factor for a 15 point projection. If he's "questionable" they'd list his projection at 10. Doubtful at 5. Enough users brought it up that they changed it for Brady only, he's always at 100% if he's listed as "probable".

Another important point from my article:Small sample sizes aside,

Then I won't draw any conclusions from it, either way.If the sample size isn't large enough to draw any real statistical conclusions, you CAN'T draw anything from it except conjecture.

Sure you can. You can say that there's not enough evidence to support the opinion that injured players perform worse (and if anything, preliminary evidence seems to refute that point). You can also say it's more likely that there's no change in performance when injured than it is that there is some change in performance, but you can't say HOW MUCH more likely. For all you know, it could be 50.001% to 49.999%, but still, it *IS* more likely that playing injured has NO impact than it is that it has STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT impact.Just because a sample size is small (and he never said HOW small) doesn't mean you have to throw out all the numbers out of hand.

 

[Borat]

However, the NFL definition is 75% likely to play. Unless you're saying that Belichik really expected Brady to not play 1/4 of those games he marked him as probable, then he was giving a dishonest injury report.

Not really. It's 75% on a week-to-week basis. It only means Belichick thinks Brady has a 75% chance to play each week. One week is irrelevant to the next.

 

[djcolts]

Did you see Indy's injury report? Half the team was listed as questionable.

I noticed that too. 19 players are questionable. Hard to believe before a season kick off.I don't recall Indy being one of the Injury Report offenders in the past. Is Dungy trying to be a Fisher?

Either they are doing this because they are mad about the Vinateri injury mess and how it was reported in the media - or they are learning from the Pats about being trickier about things. For example - they had 1 trick special teams play in each of the first 3 preseason games - and they finally did a little blitzing (with lots of success) on obvious passing down. I'm hoping it is trying to be trickier - because they need to be. If it is because they are mad at the media, then that would be typical of GM Bill Polian (he's nuts sometimes).

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

Speaking of the Pats... wasn't Deion Branch listed as questionable like 9 weeks in a row and didn't play in any of the games? If he doesn't play for two months, he's not ####### questionable, he's OUT.

 

[Borat]

Speaking of the Pats... wasn't Deion Branch listed as questionable like 9 weeks in a row and didn't play in any of the games? If he doesn't play for two months, he's not ####### questionable, he's OUT.

You don't think he could have had a nagging injury that lasted a couple months?I think some of you guys need to realize that these injury reports are filled out on a week-to-week basis. One week has no bearing on the next.

I'm not trying to blindly defend the Patriots injury reports - the Pats obviously have some fun with them - but as I understand things, the NFL isn't exactly as cut-and-dry as they could be with injury reports.

0% chance of playing = out

25% = doubtful

50% = questionable

75% = probable

So where do you put a guy who has maybe an 80% chance of playing? How about if a guy has a 99% chance of playing - don't you have to list him as 'probable,' since you'll almost definitely be fined if he isn't listed on the injury report but ends up sitting out?

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Speaking of the Pats... wasn't Deion Branch listed as questionable like 9 weeks in a row and didn't play in any of the games? If he doesn't play for two months, he's not ####### questionable, he's OUT.

You don't think he could have had a nagging injury that lasted a couple months?I think some of you guys need to realize that these injury reports are filled out on a week-to-week basis. One week has no bearing on the next.

I'm not trying to blindly defend the Patriots injury reports - the Pats obviously have some fun with them - but as I understand things, the NFL isn't exactly as cut-and-dry as they could be with injury reports.

0% chance of playing = out

25% = doubtful

50% = questionable

75% = probable

So where do you put a guy who has maybe an 80% chance of playing? How about if a guy has a 99% chance of playing - don't you have to list him as 'probable,' since you'll almost definitely be fined if he isn't listed on the injury report but ends up sitting out?

I'm going to post my injury article here soon, but those are the rules. At a high level what I found last year in the NFL was that Doubtful players only played 5% of the time, Questionable players played about 50% of the time and Probable players played about 90% of the time. But the guidelines you give are the ones the coaches need to use.

 

[Workhorse]

Speaking of the Pats... wasn't Deion Branch listed as questionable like 9 weeks in a row and didn't play in any of the games? If he doesn't play for two months, he's not ####### questionable, he's OUT.

You don't think he could have had a nagging injury that lasted a couple months?I think some of you guys need to realize that these injury reports are filled out on a week-to-week basis. One week has no bearing on the next.

I'm not trying to blindly defend the Patriots injury reports - the Pats obviously have some fun with them - but as I understand things, the NFL isn't exactly as cut-and-dry as they could be with injury reports.

0% chance of playing = out

25% = doubtful

50% = questionable

75% = probable

So where do you put a guy who has maybe an 80% chance of playing? How about if a guy has a 99% chance of playing - don't you have to list him as 'probable,' since you'll almost definitely be fined if he isn't listed on the injury report but ends up sitting out?

I'm going to post my injury article here soon, but those are the rules. At a high level what I found last year in the NFL was that Doubtful players only played 5% of the time, Questionable players played about 50% of the time and Probable players played about 90% of the time. But the guidelines you give are the ones the coaches need to use.

I think that some coaches like Belichick are realizing that if their averages over the course of the season for the entire team fall within those parameters, he's fine with the league. HOWEVER, I wouldn't put it past Belichick (or some other coaches in the league) to use that to his advantage. By putting Brady at "Probable" for multiple weeks, knowing that he'll play, Belichick could sneak a guy he knows won't play as Probable for a week or two -- Everything could still average out by the end of the season where his "probables" would end up at 75%...For a coach who is constantly pushing the envelope with the injury list, I wouldn't put it past him.

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

Speaking of the Pats... wasn't Deion Branch listed as questionable like 9 weeks in a row and didn't play in any of the games? If he doesn't play for two months, he's not ####### questionable, he's OUT.

You don't think he could have had a nagging injury that lasted a couple months?I think some of you guys need to realize that these injury reports are filled out on a week-to-week basis. One week has no bearing on the next.

I'm not trying to blindly defend the Patriots injury reports - the Pats obviously have some fun with them - but as I understand things, the NFL isn't exactly as cut-and-dry as they could be with injury reports.

0% chance of playing = out

25% = doubtful

50% = questionable

75% = probable

So where do you put a guy who has maybe an 80% chance of playing? How about if a guy has a 99% chance of playing - don't you have to list him as 'probable,' since you'll almost definitely be fined if he isn't listed on the injury report but ends up sitting out?

I'm going to post my injury article here soon, but those are the rules. At a high level what I found last year in the NFL was that Doubtful players only played 5% of the time, Questionable players played about 50% of the time and Probable players played about 90% of the time. But the guidelines you give are the ones the coaches need to use.

I think that some coaches like Belichick are realizing that if their averages over the course of the season for the entire team fall within those parameters, he's fine with the league. HOWEVER, I wouldn't put it past Belichick (or some other coaches in the league) to use that to his advantage. By putting Brady at "Probable" for multiple weeks, knowing that he'll play, Belichick could sneak a guy he knows won't play as Probable for a week or two -- Everything could still average out by the end of the season where his "probables" would end up at 75%...For a coach who is constantly pushing the envelope with the injury list, I wouldn't put it past him.

Eggsactly!