superdad

Injuries are all a part of the game when talking about the National Football League but this year we are seeing some big names go down. I guess it happens to every one in the league where a player goes down early in the season and a team must adapt to the loss of the fallen player. However there are only one Shaun Merriman, Osi Umenyoira, Jason Taylor and certainly only one Chad Johnson.

Now three of these four players are not out for the season yet, but these injuries that they have could limit there production this year. Good luck if you have any of these players in a fantasy league because you might not see to many points if these guys are not able to play at their highest abilities. Shaun Merriman makes that San Diego defense a top five defense , we saw what Osi is capable of during the run and Super Bowl surprise upset of the Patriots, and Chad Johnson might be a a thorn in the side of management and the Bengals but one thing is for sure he does make plays and makes his teammates better with his presence. No matter how you may replace these guys or put in a fill in player it is always difficult to overcome injuries. Jason Taylor is no sub par player either he is a former defensive MVP.

Just ask the Chicago Bears defense, when Mike Brown gets lost for the year, the Bears D is a whole different story. Just as the Indianapolis Colts with Bob Sanders you loose not only a superstar play maker but also a constant player that you know you can trust back there to make a play when things break down. These players are paid high but that is because they are valuable and not just another player on the roster they can just replace.

Injuries can cripple the development of young players as well. One example that come to me is the rookie from the Bears, Chris Williams. Chris was the number one draft pick out of Vanderbilt ,who dominated much of his college career, for the Bears but did not play one down with his team in pre-season because of a slipped disk in his back that required surgery that will keep Chris out till the beginning of the second half of the season. Williams was supposed to solidify the left tackle position for the offensive line and now the Bears will have to rely on a platoon of players that we saw last year which we know already do not play so well.

Despite all of these injuries that are real, some teams like to sugar coat injuries with star players. A prime example is Tom Brady with New England, where despite him starting every game since becoming the starter, he is always claimed to be hurt or nursing a hobbling injury that always gets his name on the injury list. Brady your fine, but your coach, Bill Belicheck, likes to play with other coaches heads and he is now famous for putting half of his team on the injury list before every game. When players are hurt for real on the Patriots we will never know for sure until the game starts and finally you see no player playing. That is how the Patriots have worked for years and I do not see them stopping anytime soon.

Injuries can make differences in overall performance of the team but in some case new stars are born with the change. Dallas’s Tony Romo might be the best example of that recently as he did not get a shot until players went down before him. As well as Phillip Rivers in San Diego whom got a shot to play when Drew Brees went down and Rivers played so good the team traded Brees to the New Orleans Saints the next year. Perhaps the most famous and successfully player ever to replace a star was Steve Young replacing Joe Montana. Before Young played and was a back up for the Forty Niners, Young was getting his head ripped off in Tampa Bay when the Buccaneers were consistently a bad team. You just never know what will happen when your team gets hurt with a star player going down. For the most part we see bad news and bad results but for some teams as suggested a new star could be given a shot they have been waiting for to happen.

With the season starting soon, we shall see if all off this injury talk makes a difference in the overall picture in each division. I still expect good teams to overcome these injuries but on a bad team and a less than impressive depth chart it might just be another long year.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS