It certainly did not take long for the injuries of training camp to begin in the NFL.
On Monday, Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Gerald McCoy broke his straight quadriceps tendon, and San Francisco 49ers receiver Jalen Hurd was afraid to tremble his ACL. Cincinnati Bengals receiver AJ Green, meanwhile, made up his hamstring while teammate Trae Waynes shot his pec.
Somehow, injuries like these were inevitable. Teams always treat injuries when players do not have pads, as they have been doing in recent days. But the news sent even more shrinkage through the NFL landscape, and not just because all four players are important contributors to their teams this season.
Teams will be nervous over the next few weeks about the work pressure of their players, especially in light of the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the OTA trainings on the field, which are critical for the refurbishment from players to football form.
That means depth will be more important than ever this season. Welcome to 2020, the year of the “Next Man Up.”
Some executives and coaches in the league are worried about the experience of the training camp in 2020 being essentially a repeat of 2011, when statistics show that players returned from a lockout and immediately saw a spike in soft-tissue injuries such as Achilles and tears of hamstring.
“That was attributed to missing OTAs and not having all that time and missing practice time,” one executive told Yahoo Sports recently.
Grab your helmets, NFL backups. This season will test the depth of teams like no other. (Andy Lewis / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
And it’s a sentiment that several head coaches, including Bill Belichick of New England, have been repeating in recent weeks.
“I think we had in 2011, along with a lot of other teams – and that was a good year for us, I mean we won the AFC Championship that year – but we saw a lot of soft tissue injuries,” Belichick said. . “We saw a lot of injuries early in training camp.”
However, Belichick also says that there is reason to believe that injuries are not guaranteed to reach a critical mass this pre-season, largely due to significant differences between this year and 2011. The first is the fact that players are more disastrous this time around. -up have.
“In 2011, when training camp started, we just went into it,” Belichick said. “The first day of training camp was the first day of training camp. We’ve been in one phase or another for almost three weeks, and that’s very different from 2011. “
Baltimore Ravens head coach and fitness coach Steve Saunders added that players need to be more prepared for the grind this time around to get into football fitness.
“I think in those days, even with gyms, there was a long time that guys didn’t run, they didn’t lift, they didn’t have anyone with them to counsel – and I think the soft tissue injuries are coming from your body. not ready for those activities, ”Saunders said.
However, Belichick expects that this improved start-up period of the offseason will benefit rookies and newcomers, because unlike 2011 the teams had the opportunity to learn players virtually.
“The meeting time and the opportunity to communicate information and ask questions and answer questions, all of that, had been much greater,” Belichick said. “I think we have a lot of veteran players who have been through this and were ready to go, but there are other players who are newer, either to our team or to the league, who have had a disastrous period that has been favorable to them.” t they needed, instead of just throwing them into the fire. ‘
However, players of all ages and positions will hurt this training camp, and perhaps on a higher cliff, just as they did in 2011.
This season, the team that has stood still – if the league succeeds this season, of course – will be the one who not only has the best plans for each scenario, but also the most depth. When a season is fully played, expect more players to ride through the league than ever before. Having experienced, veteran backups who can deliver and provide quality snaps at a moment’s notice will be crucial.
And if the injuries sustained in the first days of refurbished practice at training camp are any indication, some teams will test that depth – sooner, probably, rather than later.
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