Preseason Week 2 - GDT vs. Pittsburgh

[craig]

4 hours ago, Mendeleev said:

Yes  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/sports/nfl-injuries/

Thanks, you give us the Periodic Table and now you give us this!  Great link, I've never seen that before.  Much appreciated!  :):)

I'm surprised the injury differential for ST isn't even more pronounced. 

Agree with JBurge, that I think the injury rate on ST is especially high for all the crazed head-hunting ST guys gung-ho on making illegal blocks and personal fouls to prove their toughness to the coaches.  Would love to see the specific punt-returner-injury frequency.  

Sure seems dangerous, especially for slender ones like Jaire and Davis. 

Making that pros/cons analysis is fortunately beyond my pay-scale.  Whether the injury-risk/fatigue "con" with Jaire outweighs the "con" of cutting a player to keep Davis for punt-return as the only real reason. 

[craig]

Davis had 289 yards last year.  

Packers had 190 ST penalty yards last year, but I can't find a breakdown between punts vs kicks, and receiving vs covering.  I'd assume more penalties on punts than kicks, and more receiving than covering?  

I'm just guestimating, but would guess that maybe around half of the penalty yards would be on punt returns?  So if maybe 89 of the ST panalty yards were on punt returns, then the net profit on punt returns over the season was about +289 - 89 =~200 yards?  Non-trivial, but not a lot.  And 65 of those were on one play.

I have to admit that if you could only teach your guys not to commit illegal-blocks on fair-catches, it wouldn't both me much to go with a very conservative safe-hands guy who fair-caught a lot and made relatively low-thrill conservative-gain returns when he did return them.  If it's only ~+200 for the whole year, I'm just not sure the difference between being top-5 and being bottom-5 matters that much?  How many roster spots do you want to dedicate to ST guys, when over the course of a season the difference between being  top-5 and bottom-5 in punt returns is only ~100 yards?   

Penalties:  http://www.nflpenalties.com/phase.php?year=2017&view=total

Returns:  https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2017/returns.htm

[Norm]

25 minutes ago, craig said:

Davis had 289 yards last year.  

Packers had 190 ST penalty yards last year, but I can't find a breakdown between punts vs kicks, and receiving vs covering.  I'd assume more penalties on punts than kicks, and more receiving than covering?  

I'm just guestimating, but would guess that maybe around half of the penalty yards would be on punt returns?  So if maybe 89 of the ST panalty yards were on punt returns, then the net profit on punt returns over the season was about +289 - 89 =~200 yards?  Non-trivial, but not a lot.  And 65 of those were on one play.

I have to admit that if you could only teach your guys not to commit illegal-blocks on fair-catches, it wouldn't both me much to go with a very conservative safe-hands guy who fair-caught a lot and made relatively low-thrill conservative-gain returns when he did return them.  If it's only ~+200 for the whole year, I'm just not sure the difference between being top-5 and being bottom-5 matters that much?  How many roster spots do you want to dedicate to ST guys, when over the course of a season the difference between being  top-5 and bottom-5 in punt returns is only ~100 yards?   

Penalties:  http://www.nflpenalties.com/phase.php?year=2017&view=total

Returns:  https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2017/returns.htm

IDGAF about return yardage. I just want a guy who will always catch it and get a little. Anything else is gravy. Just because a guy has some wiggle and speed doesn't mean he can field them all the time. And some people seem to talk like that.

[Mr. Fussnputz]

4 hours ago, Norm said:

Stop trying to rack your memories or Google punt return injury stats 

Now turn on the logical part of your brain. Now think about what a punt return is and how they are played when you return. You have a ton of guys running full speed trying to hit you with 40 yards to get up to speed.

But it's safe because I don't remember any injuries and there's some made up stat that says so.

Google? What's that? 

[Mr. Fussnputz]

OK, Norm...According to profootballlogic.com the injury rate is about the same for all positions. (It looked like FB was significantly lower.) They did say this: "However, while we didn't track exact special teams data, a general look at special teams snap counts shows that it alone probably isn't a huge factor."

The chance of getting hurt in a game badly enough to not play the next week is just above 4%. I'm not a statistician, but I can't see how adding a few more plays by returning punts is going to have a significant effect. Players get hurt at about a 4% rate no matter what they're doing (except FBs). Put the best players out there and let them play.

 

[AlexGreen#20]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Fussnputz said:

OK, Norm...According to profootballlogic.com the injury rate is about the same for all positions. (It looked like FB was significantly lower.) They did say this: "However, while we didn't track exact special teams data, a general look at special teams snap counts shows that it alone probably isn't a huge factor."

The chance of getting hurt in a game badly enough to not play the next week is just above 4%. I'm not a statistician, but I can't see how adding a few more plays by returning punts is going to have a significant effect. Players get hurt at about a 4% rate no matter what they're doing (except FBs). Put the best players out there and let them play.

 

Wa Po has your injury rate on specials at about 50 snaps per injury.

DB at about 100

[Norm]

19 minutes ago, Mr. Fussnputz said:

OK, Norm...According to profootballlogic.com the injury rate is about the same for all positions. (It looked like FB was significantly lower.) They did say this: "However, while we didn't track exact special teams data, a general look at special teams snap counts shows that it alone probably isn't a huge factor."

The chance of getting hurt in a game badly enough to not play the next week is just above 4%. I'm not a statistician, but I can't see how adding a few more plays by returning punts is going to have a significant effect. Players get hurt at about a 4% rate no matter what they're doing (except FBs). Put the best players out there and let them play.

 

Return 1000 punts.. Now play 1000snaps at corner. I'll bet everything I own returning has more injuries. I flat out don't care what the data says. My brain can't accept that. 

Yes adding 60 returns a year probably isn't a monster risk. It's so few plays. But there's this idea it's not a bigger risk than a standard snap out there. 

It's always worth the risk, until it's not. And we're all screaming fat Mac needs to get fired.

[craig]

58 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

Wa Po has your injury rate on specials at about 50 snaps per injury.

DB at about 100

• So, one year of punt-return is almost as injury-risky as a full game at DB. 
• Davis returned 24 punts last year.   Davis and Hyde combined for 20 two years ago.  
• A typical game averages what, 60 snaps per team?   
• So, it takes over 2 years to reach 50 plays for a punt-returner; less than two games to hit 100 DB snaps.
• Every game is an injury risk; so maybe if a full year of punt-returning is almost as bad as one full game at DB, maybe that is too risky?     
• Note: the Post article included anybody who ever gets listed.  So we're not talking season-ending IR or anything like that.

 

[Mr. Fussnputz]

I guess I'm old school on this. John Taylor returned punts for the 49ers. He was good at it too. The 49ers didn't worry about Taylor getting injured. If you're going to sit around and worry about injuries, football is not the best game to be a fan of.

[Beast]

Sounds like the Steelers top 2 QBs won't be playing

We need some games against talented QBs to make sure the DBs are ready (yeah I know we got Rodgers, but) I was hoping for some live game action for the young ones.

[AlexGreen#20]

2 hours ago, craig said:

• So, one year of punt-return is almost as injury-risky as a full game at DB. 
• Davis returned 24 punts last year.   Davis and Hyde combined for 20 two years ago.  
• A typical game averages what, 60 snaps per team?   
• So, it takes over 2 years to reach 50 plays for a punt-returner; less than two games to hit 100 DB snaps.
• Every game is an injury risk; so maybe if a full year of punt-returning is almost as bad as one full game at DB, maybe that is too risky?     
• Note: the Post article included anybody who ever gets listed.  So we're not talking season-ending IR or anything like that.

 

In the Washington Post article, they are counting injuries per snap. They are not counting injuries per return.

The fact that the injury rate at that spot is double despite half (realistically more) of the plays ending in a fair catch is not evidence that plays to your favor.

[Norm]

1 hour ago, Mr. Fussnputz said:

I guess I'm old school on this. John Taylor returned punts for the 49ers. He was good at it too. The 49ers didn't worry about Taylor getting injured. If you're going to sit around and worry about injuries, football is not the best game to be a fan of.

I guess NFL coaches should not be coaches since they tend to not put their absolute best returner back there if he's a star player. This has jack **** to do with fans. It's the reality of risking starters for something that's not that important anymore.

[Beast]

12 minutes ago, Norm said:

I guess NFL coaches should not be coaches since they tend to not put their absolute best returner back there if he's a star player. This has jack **** to do with fans. It's the reality of risking starters for something that's not that important anymore.

Oh you just reminded me about another thing fans used to always complain about... stupid NFL coaches would waste a roster spot with a long snapper spot

All 32 teams head coaches didn't know what they were doing, and they should just use a C or TE there instead

[squire12]

15 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

In the Washington Post article, they are counting injuries per snap. They are not counting injuries per return.

The fact that the injury rate at that spot is double despite half (realistically more) of the plays ending in a fair catch is not evidence that plays to your favor.

is the injury rate double for the punt returner or is it double for any of the 11 special teams players on 1 of the 4 main units (Punt, punt return, KO, KO return).   

The article lumps all special teams players together in the injury statistic

[Mr. Fussnputz]

12 minutes ago, Norm said:

I guess NFL coaches should not be coaches since they tend to not put their absolute best returner back there if he's a star player. This has jack **** to do with fans. It's the reality of risking starters for something that's not that important anymore.

And who was Taylor's coach back then? I think some crackpot loser named Bill Walsh. By your logic anytime one of our star DBs make an interception, they should take a knee, because returning the ball would be an injury risk. Let 'em play.