Jets hire Robert Saleh, and the losses begin for the 49ers. + An Injury Investigation: Luck or Fate?
Mike LaFleur is also gone from the 49ers, as the leeching begins.
(Santa Clara) - The coaching cycle is beginning to yield dividends as we near wild-card weekend, and there are a couple of big updates:
Urban Meyer, the troubled and talented HC who coached for Ohio State, has taken the Jacksonville Jaguars coaching job, and presumably will form a great HC-QB duo with Trevor Lawrence. Unfortunately, the Jaguars.. are going to Jaguar, and what I mean by that is Trent Baalke, the former 49ers GM and chief dictator of the 49ers’ 2012 team and their collapse… is the front-runner for the GM job.
The Eagles fired Doug Pederson, who just three years ago, led them to a Super Bowl victory.
The Chargers, Falcons, Texans, Lions, and now Eagles all have coaching vacancies, with Meyer being the first domino to fall.
But maybe the biggest development is this… for the 49ers at least.
Scott Fitterer? What does that have anything to do with the 49ers situation?
Adam Peters was one of four finalists for the Panthers job, and him not getting it was big because that means Peters - who hasn’t got much interest outside of that job, may stay with the 49ers for one more season.
But the bad news - the star DC is gone, as the Jets ink him for 5 years - for the cultural overhaul and for his defensive mind. Worse, he will bring along Mike LaFleur, one of Shanahan’s top offensive assistants and our passing game coordinator.
Saleh got four years with the 49ers and made the most of it, with talent being bad his first two years, and injuries piling up this season. His player relationships, ability to develop talent (especially at LB, his former area of expertise), and ability to identify coaching talent to surround himself with should make him an ideal HC - but there have been many candidates with the same credentials that have failed.
Fixing the Jets is a steep task. I think most 49ers fans will root for Saleh.
The 49ers will also receive a 2021 3rd round pick, and a 2022 3rd round pick, both compensatory and at the end of the round - for his hiring.
Nick Bosa. Dee Ford. Solomon Thomas. Jimmy Garoppolo. George Kittle. The list goes on and on, never-ending.
Some chalk it up to bad luck. That, it could very well be. But why us? How was our injury situation so bad compared to every other team. Every player has prior injuries, there’s not a single player in the NFL that has a clean injury history. But there are some with more injuries than others. Let’s dive into it… injury by injury.
Whether you like it or not, it’s a fact that players with previous injury history are likely to be re-injured, and the data is extremely clear.
On average, 40 percent of players who played or would have played in Week 1 missed at least one game due to injury that season. Among those with no reported injuries in the prior two seasons, though, that figure is just 26 percent.
The risk of missing time increases rapidly with a longer injury history. Thirty-five percent, 41 percent, and 46 percent of players with one, two, or three injuries in the prior two years miss time in their upcoming season, respectively. As injury histories get very long (six or more total injuries in the previous two seasons), risks flatten out at around 55 or 60 percent.
Players with the longest injury histories have twice the risk of missing time as those with a completely clean bill over the previous two seasons. However, even a player with five injuries in two seasons has a 50/50 chance of at least suiting up for all 16 games his next season. Does a 50 percent chance of missing time make a player "injury-prone?" They are certainly more injury-prone on average than players with a shorter injury history, but it's important to consider their actual risks. Teams need to understand as precisely as they can the additional risk they might be taking on by drafting or signing a guy with a lengthy injury history rather than just saying "ah, forget him, he's injury-prone."
We looked at each player's history of 17 specific types of injuries over their previous two seasons. A longer history of most types of injuries corresponded to an increased risk of missing time in the upcoming season. What's more, the increases were surprisingly steady: each additional injury of a specific type added to a player's risk.
For example:
players with no knee injuries in the prior two years had a 37 percent chance of missing time in their upcoming season;
those with one to three injuries had a 45 to 50 percent chance of missing time;
and those with a history of four or more had around a 65 percent chance.
With that being said, let’s jump into it.
Jimmy Garoppolo
AC Joint Sprain (2016) - two games missed.
ACL tear (2018) - thirteen games missed.
High-ankle sprain (2020) - two games missed.
Re-aggravated high-ankle sprain (2020) - eight games missed.
Nick Bosa
Torn ACL (high school, 2015)
Bilateral core muscle injury (college, 2018)
High-ankle sprain (2019) - preseason missed
Torn ACL (2020) - fourteen games missed.
Solomon Thomas
MCL sprain (2017) - two games missed.
Concussion (2018) - zero games missed.
Torn ACL (2020) - fourteen games missed.
Dee Ford
Herniated disc (back) (college) - season missed.
Back injury (unconfirmed) (2017) - eleven games missed.
Groin strain (2018) - one game missed.
Knee sprain (2019) - preseason missed.
Hamstring sprain (2019) - five games missed.
Achilles “tweak” (2020) - zero games missed.
Back/neck injury (2020) - fifteen games missed.
Weston Richburg
High-ankle sprain (2015) - one game missed.
Torn “hand” tendon (2016) - zero games missed, required surgery, played through it.
Concussion (2017) - twelve games missed.
Unknown knee and quadricep injury (2018) - one games missed, played through it.
Torn patellar tendon (2019) - four games missed.
Torn patellar tendon (continued) - sixteen games missed.
Shoulder injury (2020) - unknown, required surgery.
Jaquiski Tartt
Knee injury (2015) - one game missed.
Quadriceps injury (2016) - one game missed.
Broken forearm (2017) - nine games missed.
Shoulder injury (2018) - seven games missed.
Ribs (2019) - four games missed.
Groin injury (2020) - two games missed.
Foot injury (2020) - seven games missed.
Jalen Hurd
Torn labrum (shoulder) (senior year of high school) - required surgery, missed season.
Unknown shoulder injury (college) - required surgery.
Torn meniscus (college) - required surgery.
Ankle injury (college)
Concussion (college)
Back fracture (2019) - missed sixteen games.
Torn ACL (2020) - missed sixteen games.
Raheem Mostert
Broken arm (2018) - missed seven games.
Undisclosed knee injury (2019) - missed zero games.
MCL sprain (2020) - missed two games.
High-ankle sprain (2020) - missed four games.
High-ankle sprain (2020) - missed two games.
Richard Sherman
Torn patellar tendon (college) - missed season, required surgery.
Torn ligament (left elbow) (2014) - offseason injury, required surgery.
Sprained MCL (2016) - played through it.
Tweaked achilles (2017) - played through it.
Torn achilles (2017) - six games missed, required surgery.
Calf strain (2018) - two games missed.
Hamstring strain (2019) - one game missed.
Calf strain (2020) - nine games missed.
Calf strain (2020) - two games missed.
Deebo Samuel
Hamstring strain (freshman college) - missed majority of season.
Hamstring strain (sophomore college) - missed end of season.
Broken fibula - ankle (junior college) - missed majority of season.
Groin strain (2019) - one game missed.
Broken foot - ankle (2020) - three games missed, offseason missed after surgery
Hamstring strain(s) (2020) - six games missed
K’Waun Williams
Concussion (2014) - one game missed.
Hamstring injury (2014) two games missed.
Concussion (2015) - two games missed.
Shoulder injury (2015) - one game missed.
Ankle injury/fracture (2016) - sixteen (full season) games missed, required surgery.
Quadriceps injury (2017) - two games missed.
Unknown knee injury (2019) - preseason missed.
Calf injury (2020) - zero games missed, training camp injury, missed a month.
ACL sprain (2020) - three games missed.
High-ankle sprain (2020) - four games missed.
Ben Garland
“Strain” (2018) - two (preseason) games missed.
Ankle injury (2020) - one game missed.
Calf strain (2020) - ten games missed.
Ezekiel Ansah
Shoulder injury (2014) - missed offseason, surgery required.
High-ankle sprain (2016) - three games missed.
High-ankle sprain (2017) - offseason and preseason missed,
Back injury (2017) - two games missed.
Shoulder injury (2018) - eight games missed.
Shoulder injury (2018) - three games missed, surgery required.
Shoulder and groin injury (2019) - two games missed.
Ankle injury (2019) - one game missed.
Neck injury (2019 - two games missed.
Torn bicep (2020) - twelve games missed.
Jamar Taylor
Sports hernia (2013) - surgery required, seven games missed,
Torn labrum (2014) - surgery required, four games missed.
Quad injury (2015) - missed entire preseason.
Groin injury (2016) - missed one game, played through it.
Torn ACL (2020) - five games missed.
When you rely on “draft steals” or “free agent steals”, “low-risk, high-reward” players - not as depth, but as key contributors… this is exactly what happens. The 49ers need to be more diligent when identifying talent and red-flagging it. Javon Kinlaw already has been flagged for knee arthritis. Deebo Samuel had hamstring issues dating back to high school, issues that limited him to being a part-time player his first two years of college. And now, those issues are back in the NFL, this season.
The likelihood that this wasn’t luck, but something the 49ers should have foreseen coming - is high, very high. The saying is that teams don’t plan for injuries. The 49ers should have, when they took these risks.
Thorough and thoughtful. Through and through. Thanks!
Nice Article Riqo. I'm out of the loops down here and the articles popping into my emails help me get the news pretty quickly. Hope Saleh will take some of our injured players with him (Solly T, I'm looking at you—you'd make a good Jet methinks.)