The Year of the Injury

What a crazy week in the NFL. Then again, you can say that pretty much any week the boys are on the field on Sunday. As it happens every year, though, the early part of the season is a time when a lot of players go down with various injuries. Rookies haven't adjusted to the speed of the league, some players are out of shape, and some just get lazy at the end of a play and come up lame.

Let's start with a 0-2 team that knows that if they go 0-3, they are in serious danger of missing the playoffs. In a division with Denver and Oakland, the Kansas City Chiefs' high-powered offense has been nothing more than Priest Holmes this season. This makes the news of Priest Holmes' high ankle sprain all that more upsetting to the Chiefs fans. The defense is laughable, at best, and Trent Green has as many quality receivers to throw to as I do. That puts the weight of the team purely on Holmes, and it looks like the weight tweaked his ankle.

On to Indianapolis, where Edgerrin James took the Colts on his back against the Titans last week, hitting holes like he did before his knee injury. News from the Colts camp is that he has a second-degree tear of his hamstring, which could be much more serious than fans are being let to believe. Whether James is a stellar back has never really been an issue in the Colts' high-powered offense. The Colts just need a passable back to make sure and keep a defense honest. Armed with backup Dominic Rhodes in the backfield, many defensive coordinators are going to force Peyton Manning to throw into double- and triple-coverage. And God knows that the man won't run the ball.

Next, the upstart Chicago Bears who shocked the world Sunday with a 21-10 win over Green Bay in Lambeau. As a life-long Bears fan, I was jumping through the roof when Mike Brown ripped the ball out of Ahman Green's hands and ran it all the way to the house. The Chicago sports fan in me also knew that for every good, there will be an equally horrific bad. With less than four minutes to go in the game and the win secured, Brown went down with a torn ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. That's what I get for cheering.

Everyone's favorite loudmouth, Cleveland's Kellen Winslow, Jr., might not be saying anything for a while. Especially if he loses out on $5.3 million dollars of incentive based bonus money because of a broken leg that will sideline Winslow for at least two months. Jeff Garcia needed a key target in the worst way this season; now the man is left with a receiving core that has caught a league-low 115.5 yards/game on the season. That's 10 yards off the next highest team, the offensive juggernaut that is the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The New Orleans Saints Deuce McAllister will miss over a month of football, and maybe more, after a nasty ankle sprain that tore some ligaments. The same ankle that McAllister hurt two years ago is giving him problems again. In an offense built around him, the Saints will have a tough time contending in the NFC South with Carolina and Atlanta. They barely got by the anemic Niners on Sunday. One thing is for sure, he will not be back to where he was before the injury two years ago, and he probably never will be.

Pittsburgh gets to see an early showing of their first-round draft pick, QB Ben Roethlisberger, after Tommy Maddox went down with torn ligaments in his right elbow. It matters very little, though. No matter who Bill Cowher puts on the field, it's going to be hard for them to perform in such an unstructured offense. The best part of the whole situation is that Roethlisberger is invincible. He can't be pulled.

The only other decent, and I'm using the term decent very loosely, quarterback on the Steelers roster is Charlie Batch. Batch is out getting his knee scoped and won't be back for a few weeks. The only other quarterback on the roster is second-year player Brian St. Pierre. Can you imagine the game Roethlisberger would have to have to play to be pulled for St. Pierre? It would have to be Kurt Warner-esque, only much worse.

My favorite injury list of the week is the receiving core of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With Keenan McCardell holding out, and at this point, I wouldn't come back, the Buccaneers were definitely looking for a big receiver to step up. So of course, that's when three key receivers go down. Joey Galloway sustains a significant tear in his groin. Edell Shepherd breaks his foot and will be out for numerous weeks. Then, Joe Jurevicius hurts his back and won't be back until at least mid-October. So that leaves a wet behind the ears rookie out of LSU, Michael Clayton, on one side of the line, and Tim Brown lining up with his walker and bed nurse on the other.

I could go on for pages about some other key injuries. The Cardinals' Anquan Boldin. The Falcons' DeAngelo Hall. The Cowboys' Julius Jones. The list goes on and on. I can't remember a season where so many big injuries happened so early. For some teams, an injury to one player is the difference between an 11-5 season and an 8-8 season. People underestimate the importance of the individual in such a team oriented sport. I hear all the time that it's the system that makes a team, or that one player isn't that big of a difference.

The biggest example for my case is last year when Michael Vick went down in the preseason. With Vick at the helm this season, the team is already 2-0 and poised to make the playoffs. Last season with basically the same team, but minus Vick, it looked like some good middle-school Bantam teams could get over on them. There really is no way to prevent a season-shattering injury like the one that happened to Vick.

But many of these injuries that have happened in recent weeks happened on poor tackles, terrible cuts, and all-around sloppy play. The only thing for a fan to do is hope their team can make it a couple more weeks without a team-shattering injury. By then, many of these players will finally be in game-shape and in better football shape.

As for me, I blame the injuries on a faceless entity. Way to go month-long preseason, for making these players soft after training camp!

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