Originally Posted by
Farmer
I stopped reading the article when its started talking about the covid vaccine.
The injury thing is multifactorial.
For about the last 10-15 years (long before covid), people have been noticing the injury rate getting worse and worse....long before covid, or the vaccine.
IMO....
1- The players we have now are faster than ever. There's been nothing like this before. 260# DE's running 4.55 40's, etc.
Players in the 80's were laughably slow compared to athletes we have today....league wide. Not the stars so much, but everyone league wide.
They (coaches, owners, people doing the drafting, etc) value physical metrics way too much (40 time, shuttle time, SVJ, etc).
High performance vehicles are going to break down more, period.
Slow/unexplosive people typically don't tear hamstrings, Achilles, etc (or very much, or as much as high performance athletes).
2- Over the last 20 years, the agile/running quarterback in the NFL has become much more acceptable and prevalent.
Thats a key position thats going to take abuse and get knocked out of the game, or, blow up an ACL trying to make a cut in a sprint downfield.
That's huge injury to a key player that derails a season, and it really sticks in everyones mind when it happens.
That stuff doesn't happen with Marino, Rothlesburger, Elway, Manning, Brady type QBs..... sure they might get sacked more, get concussed, etc.
But the other injuries: no. Those tall, dopey, white-guy types could probably finish the season with a tore ACL (or insert another leg injury) if push came to shove....just waddling around in the pocket throwing the ball, etc.
3- Also, these track-sprinters-wearing-shoulder-pads, are naturally more prone to injury....especially due to the way they are mishandled / mismanaged in practice.
I'm sure the view on this board will be they don't lift weights enough, or heavy enough weights ... and that might be true to an small extent.
But worse than that, they baby the athletes (fear of injury in practice) by not letting them get up to top speed very often in practice (WRs, DBs, RBs, and yes lineman).
So their muscles, "soft tissues", tendons, are not conditioned for "it" when they have to hit top speeds (s) and/or hard cuts in a game.
Pop goes the hammy, groin, Achilles, etc when the need for speed arises in a game.
There is a more recent movement is S&C circles about "letting" the athletes get up to top speed more frequently in practice/in-season to sort of inoculate the muscles and tendons against tears or injury. Max velocity sprinting, but a very low dose of it (volume), but still somewhat frequent. If you bounced this off of an NFL S&C, they normally would freak out because if the athlete pulled a hammy in practice (this is the same argument with heavy squats in season) they'd be in deep doo-doo with the team owner or head coach. It hasn't really caught on in the NFL .... more of a D2 college thing right now. Some trials with it with team sports has shown promise. Teams are going entire seasons with no hamstring tears. Track sprinters rarely tear hamstrings actually, but if you want find out how to break a track sprinter, baby him for a week and then tell him to go all out one day on the fly.
4- Also, there is some who suspect playing surfaces, and the fact the athletes going from artificial turf, to grass, to art.turf might be contributing to non-contact ACL tears. The mix match of the the different surfaces seems to be causing injuries....or that's the theory. The athletes are better off sticking to one consistent surface throughout the season. I bet in 10-15 years every NFL field will have the same exact type of artificial turf, it will be NFL-wide/franchise requirement.
lol at "vaccine".