Do We Lead the League in Injuries?

[JoeW]

I'm wondering--do we lead the league in "man games lost" due to injury? I'm think it's got to be between us and NE for the league lead on this. By my count, it's 71 full man-games lost to this point only in the season. That does not include Rimando (who obviously wasn't 100% at the start of the season), or players lost to injury in matches (such as Petke and Kuffour this last match or Nelsen against LA in LA). I may have also shorted Nelsen some injury time--I thought he'd only missed 3 matches due to injury (and the others b/c of callups).

I have the Revs at 68 full man games lost b/c of injury this year (since I don't follow them closely, that number could be off). I can't think of anyone else who's close to DCU and NE in terms of number of players lost due to injury this season. Even if I've got the numbers wrong (and NE is indeed ahead of us), that's still a lot of injuries.

[tmas]

Whatever it is, when I told the people I watched the game with yesterday (big screen, in HD... WOW) their collective mouths dropped.

[beltwayrob]

It would make us first in something, so I'll say YES!

[GDopplerXT]

JoeW, if you're numbers are correct that's a pretty staggering statistic. (Although maybe it's only staggering relative to other teams, who knows.) We have gotten a severe beating with the ol' injury stick this year, as has New England.

However, maybe it's just that the East is weak (again) this year, but we're still most definitely in a good position. The East is tight, to be sure, but at this point we're in third and have as much of a shot at winning the division as every other team (in our division.) I see that as a good sign; if we can get some guys back, get Esky and Dema to stop racking up stupid yellow cards, and string a few results together, all of a sudden we're looking pretty good.

[JoeW]

My numbers are "correct" in that they don't overstate games lost due to injury. They may have understated some games lost (b/c I may have given some players like Convey and Nelsen more credit for callups to games lost that were actually injuries). They actually understate the total b/c they don't count matches where players were hurt and left before finishing (and we know that Eskandarian and Adu's health were factors in why they weren't playing 90 minutes earlier in the season). It also understates the Rimando situation--I'm convinced that he probably wasn't fully recovered from his knee injury until 2 months into the season (and that led to poor play, reduced confidence, etc.). Yet I didn't include him in the total as having missed any games b/c of injury.

It would be interesting to hear from someone with NE if I got their numbers right. They've got a couple of people like Joe Max Moore and Rusty Pierce and Carlos Llamosa that rival our crew of forwards (Quaranta, Martins and Quintanilla) in terms of missed games.

But to put it in perspective, 71 man-games lost in 18 games means that basically every game, you're missing 4 players due to injury (and that does not count callups, suspensions and injuries that occur during the match).

[Pints]

JoeW, if you're numbers are correct that's a pretty staggering statistic. (Although maybe it's only staggering relative to other teams, who knows.) We have gotten a severe beating with the ol' injury stick this year, as has New England.

However, maybe it's just that the East is weak (again) this year, but we're still most definitely in a good position. The East is tight, to be sure, but at this point we're in third and have as much of a shot at winning the division as every other team (in our division.) I see that as a good sign; if we can get some guys back, get Esky and Dema to stop racking up stupid yellow cards, and string a few results together, all of a sudden we're looking pretty good.


I share in your optismism, possibly because there isn't much of anything else to do ;)

I think the results across the league this weekend really helped us stay in the mix as well. Seems when we lose everyone else draws so it isn't a major fall back.

[GDopplerXT]

I think the results across the league this weekend really helped us stay in the mix as well. Seems when we lose everyone else draws so it isn't a major fall back.

Absolutely. I was having this discussion with a DCU staffer at the game last week. The injury bug has been unkind to us, but on the other hand, a lot of the other teams' results have been kind to us. That's as much part of the game as injuries, so fair enough for us.