RB Injuries

Anecdotally, it felt like this year was a terrible one in terms of RB injuries. It seemed like none of the top RBs, save Tomlinson, were guys you could start every week without at least keeping close track of the waiver wire. Of course, this worked to the advantage of those who loved the waiver wire: not only did new, effective starters frequently emerge, but frustrated owners sometimes dumped quality players (I was able to pick up Brandon Jacobs in multiple leagues). But was this really a particularly bad season?

I decided to take a look at games missed by the top RBs20 and compare them to the results from the last five years, as found in David Dorey’s book Fantasy Football: The Next Level. Since he looked at the top 20 Running Backs based on ADP, I did the same to be consistent.

The results were interesting.

Year Games Lost Number of Players Missing Games
2002 19 8
2003 49 9
2004 65 11
2005 51 10
2006 35 9
2007 56 15

So, there weren’t a uniquely large number of games missed this year; however, there were a uniquely large number of plays affected. Many of them (Alexander, Rudi Johnson, Henry) did not miss many games but spent several games being on the field but ineffective. Moreover, these RBs were often on the injury report, forcing owners to constantly sweat out game time decisions and perhaps leading to a perception of larger injury loss.

Also, I cut off that table at the top 20 for easy comparison, but here were the games missed of players 21-26, guys who were often drafted as starters. It totals another 40 games lost.

21) McAllister 13
22) Lynch 3
23) Peterson (Min) 2
24) C. Williams 12
25) Barber 0
26) Green 10

What does all of this mean? Some will see it as reason to move away from drafting running backs early, but I’m not sure that’s the right analysis. As the table shows, the last big year for RB injuries was 2004. That year, much like this one, QBs dominated the top scorers list, and some argued that fantasy football was moving from a RB dominated game to a QB dominated. Of course, the demise of the RB was greatly exaggerated.

More importantly, even if the increase in QB scoring continues, that doesn’t necessarily mean QBs should be drafted early – in fact, it encourages waiting because a good QB can be found later in the draft. Top RBs are still hard to find late in the draft. Some will point to the fact that Earnest Graham and Ryan Grant could be found on the waiver wire this year to suggest that starting RBs can be found later in the draft, too. But while this year wasn’t a historic one for injuries, it was on the high side. If RB injuries trend back downwards, those waiting to find starters on waivers may not find them. A dominant, healthy RB1 is still the holy grail, which is one reason why the guy at the top of drafts this year was so valuable – here’s the list of the top 20 with the number of games each missed, and note the number next to LDT’s name.

1) Tomlinson 0
2) S. Jackson 4
3) Larry Johnson 8
4) Gore 1
5) Alexander 3
6) Addai 1
7) Westbrook 1
8) Parker 1
9) Bush 4
10) Rudi Johnson 5
11) Maroney 3
12) Henry 5
13) McGahee 1
14) Jones-Drew 0
15) R. Brown 9
16) Edge James 0
17) Benson 5
18) Portis 0
19) T. Jones 0
20) Jacobs 5