Is the huge NFL injury list going to bring major changes?
By Curtis Hobbs
It’s the start of Week 3, and despite the “feel good” stories of surprise teams starting 2-0, the rash of injuries is leading the headlines. As a whole, what is there to make of this incredible rate of injuries that is causing more carnage than a tornado through a trailer park?
Are the teams doing enough to protect their investments, or are we about to see a league where players will be wrapped in bubble wrap more and more?
It all began the first day of rookie minicamps when Dante Fowler Jr. went down for the Jaguars. When Kelvin Benjamin and Jordy Nelson went down, it snowballed violently from there as—week after week—more and more names piled onto the injury lists of every team. What is happening? Some of the premier athletes in the world are dropping like flies in plays where there is hardly any contact.
Though we saw a flurry of injuries before the season began, the injury bug has extended its deadly tentacles to the quarterbacks around the league. This last week, four quarterbacks went down with alarming injuries, two with what seems to be season-altering in Tony Romo and Drew Brees.
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Every franchise knows that the quarterback may very be the most important position on any field in professional sports, and the backups are not an option for their postseason hopes. More than likely, the arms that hold the clipboards during the game are not reliable enough for the playoff push.
The league is going to take notice of this, and more than likely is going to make some drastic changes if these still happen. We may not have any monetary investments in our beloved teams, but the NFL is all about the money and franchises around the league will do whatever it takes to keep people in the seats.
If you look at the budgets around the league, the starting quarterback is paid the most on over 70 percent of the league. In fact, 16 of the top-20 contracts in the league are filling up the bank accounts of the quarterback and every smart businessman knows that if he or she can find a way to prevent wasted money, they will do so.
There is a very good chance that we are on the verge of seeing flags placed on the quarterbacks, as two-hand touch would still be too violent to keep most of the league off the IR and there’s a great chance that the NFL is at an all-time uncertain precipice where decisions will have to be made that will affect everything that NFL fans have come to know about the game.
In a sport that is based on brute force and finesse, injuries become a common occurrence. But every fan of the NFL should be cringing about the steps the NFL may attempt as they try to avoid more litigation from the ex-gladiators of the gridiron, and the NFL will do whatever it takes to protect the net-worth of their industry, even to the degree where the game is changed entirely.
The days of hard-hitting football are about to become as distant as the teams ravished by injury hope of making the playoffs. Relish in the last days of a physical defensive player who “head hunts” . Those “cannibalistic” players that we all know and love may be an afterthought in years to come.
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