Tag: Quarterback Injuries

NFL Week 7 Predictions: Snoozer Edition

~ scottkacsmar ~ 1 Comment

We go from the Game of the Year last week to a prime-time slate that the NFL must have been high when they put together. No one wanted to see this shit in April, let alone late October.

I said I would nap during the island games, and so far I’m 1-for-1. What I saw of Saints-Cardinals actually wasn’t that bad in a surprisingly high-scoring game, but that had more to do with my jacked up sleeping pattern this week. I’ll stay awake for Dolphins-Steelers. Probably.

But quarterback injuries are a huge theme again this week.

Not just which players are out, but how will the guys returning from injury look? I’ll share a few thoughts on those games below in the predictions, but first, here are some of the articles I wrote this week:

NFL Week 7 Predictions

Okay, TNF was probably the most far off I’ve been about an island game this season. Still, I wonder how it goes without that bobbled pick-six the Cardinals scored.

Dak Prescott’s return: Was he just off in Week 1, or what was that all about? I think he’s going to look fine in this one, but I’m taking the Lions to cover as a precaution. I’d say we know the Lions can score but they did just get shut out before the bye week.

Taylor Heinicke takes over for Carson Wentz (finger): This one is interesting because Heinicke marched Washington up and down the field in Lambeau last year. The 430 yards of offense were the second most the team has had in any game in the last three years. They just couldn’t finish in the red zone at all. With the way the Packers have been playing, I can’t trust them in any game that isn’t at home on SNF against the Bears right now.

How the hell does Carolina score?: The game I’m planning on betting on a lot is Tampa Bay to beat Carolina by 14+ points. I know, Tampa Bay hasn’t looked right all year, but how the hell does Carolina score on this defense without Christian McCaffrey? He had most of their yards last week and they still only scored 3 points on offense. You know Brady is pissed off and won’t blow another double-digit favorite game here. Even if TB doesn’t light up the scoreboard, this could end 21-6. The Panthers haven’t been this unwatchable since 2010 Jimmy Clausen year, and at least that team had Steve Smith.

Brett Rypien replaces Russell Wilson (hamstring) vs. Jets: This one is funny cause Rypien played against the Jets in 2020 in his only other NFL start, a weird 37-28 game in prime time. A lot of people are going to jump on the Jets (4-2) bandwagon here, but I’m going against the grain and taking Denver to still win at home. I don’t trust the offense, but I trust the defense at home, and I think it’d be funny if Rypien led the offense to its best game of the season the moment Wilson goes down. Let’s root for chaos and have him light it up.

Kenny Pickett vs. Tua Tagovailoa: I thought Tua changed the concussion protocol enough to where we wouldn’t see Pickett in this game, but here we are. It’s anecdotal evidence, but my experience says fade the Steelers quarterback coming off a head injury in his next game. Look up what Tommy Maddox did against the 2002 Texans after an injury scare, look what Ben Roethlisberger did to the 2006 Raiders after a concussion, or just look at how bad the Pittsburgh offense is in general. They may not get blown out here like they have been on the road lately, but I can easily see a 24-16 loss.

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NFL Week 5 Predictions: Injured Quarterbacks Edition

~ scottkacsmar ~ Leave a comment

The NFL nailed Sunday Night Football in Week 5 with the Buffalo Bills looking to get their biggest win in the regular season in decades in Kansas City and drop the Chiefs to 2-3 in the process. If you look at the remaining schedules for both teams, it would seem highly improbable (but not impossible) for the Chiefs to catch Buffalo in the AFC standings if they lose this game.

Rather than churn out a game preview here for this one, I was fortunate to already take care of this game in 2,000 words of detail at BMR, so click here to read that. I have also done previews for Eagles-Panthers and Colts-Ravens.

Before getting to the picks, I wanted to take a moment to update some quarterback injury stats after a newsworthy Friday involving finger surgery for Russell Wilson.

Active Starting Quarterbacks: Career Injury History

Another one bites the dust. The dreaded Russell Wilson injury I feel like I’ve been warning about the last six seasons happened, and it happened in a way you’d least expect: in the pocket with an on-time throw. There was no scrambling. It was not a leg injury. It was his finger that contacted Aaron Donald on his follow through, and it’s frankly a miracle this doesn’t happen to a quarterback every season given the hundreds of opportunities. For Wilson, he threw almost 5,000 passes in his career before this unfortunate setback that will cost him at least a month and likely put his 10th season in spoiled territory with the Seahawks at 2-3 in a tough division.

So ends the fifth-longest starting streak in NFL history at quarterback. We are also down to just Kirk Cousins, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Justin Herbert as the non-rookie starters who have never missed a start to injury in the NFL. Baker is currently ailing with a torn labrum he suffered in Week 2, so his days on that small list could be numbered.

I’ve included three tables that highlight the injury history for today’s landscape of starters, including a few players who have been sent to the bench already this year in Drew Lock and Andy Dalton. But I had the data, so why not keep them there? The first table shows the quarterbacks who have had had 3+ injuries and missed the most games. The second table also has some multi-injured quarterbacks, and the last table has everyone with no injuries or a single injury situation.

NFL Week 5 Predictions

I had the Rams winning 29-23 in Seattle, so 26-17 did the trick for me on the spread, total and MOV (Rams by 1-13). Now if only Robert Woods or Cooper Kupp could have scored a touchdown, then it would have been a banner f’n night at the old Kacsmar residence.

Unless I can’t sleep like last Sunday, I won’t be setting an alarm for Jets-Falcons so I can watch Kyle Pitts not score a touchdown on a second continent. However, I will have a bet on him doing it anyway somewhere.

I don’t trust anything with the Saints and will be fading that game entirely. Ditto for Patriots-Texans. Crazy to think of an NFL where the Patriots and Saints scare you to bet on their games, but this is where I’m at right now with those teams. What really are those offenses at this point? Jakobi Meyers doesn’t catch touchdowns, Mac Jones doesn’t throw downfield, and the Saints would rather give Taysom Hill his touches than feed Alvin Kamara targets (anywhere) or carries in the red zone.

The worst common bet in the NFL is the 10-point spread. From 2001-2020, 10-point favorites covered only 43.9% of the time compared to 48.0% for 3-point favorites, 48.5% for 7-point favorites, and 54.5% for 9.5-point favorites. The only point spread with a lower cover rate (min. 100 games) in that time is 9-point favorites at 43.6%. It makes sense, mathematically. To cover a 10-point spread, you basically have to win by 14+ as teams rarely win with a differential of 11-13 points. If you’re in that range late in the game, you should be going for two to try to get it up to 14 to protect yourself from a collapse. Anyways, this is the long way to say that I don’t trust Kirk Cousins behind his offensive line to win by more than 10 this week. I know they’ve done it three years in a row at home against the Lions when they had Stafford, I know Cousins is 6-0 vs. Detroit with the Vikings and five of the wins were by 12+ points. But I’m just going with my gut here.

I have the Bears upsetting the Raiders as perhaps the Football Gods reward Matt Nagy for sticking with Justin Fields and punish the Raiders for Jon Gruden’s e-mails. Imagine the tweets starting around 7:30 P.M. EST on Sunday if that one comes true…

With Trey Lance starting for Jimmy Garoppolo, I’m going to give the 49ers a shot to cover and keep it close as Lance is such a wild card. He could be incredible or he could be terrible like the other rookies have mostly been this year. But I’m also used to seeing the 49ers lose close games under Kyle Shanahan, so I can live with this hedge. The Cardinals have been playing incredible but they aren’t going to score 31+ every week.

My detailed Steelers prediction: Now that Ben Roethlisberger has his 400th touchdown pass and moved past Dan Marino in yards, he’s hit the career milestones he was going to hit this year. I think he gives it one last go in front of the home crowd, and if they lose this one too to fall to 1-4, the Steelers will play up his injury and that will end his season and ultimately his career. So maybe the nostalgia in me is willing to give him one last home win, but I’m not really sure what to expect from Denver with Teddy Bridgewater coming off a concussion and Courtland Sutton getting injured in practice. It could be a 17-16 type of game where the Steelers can pull it out late. But these days, watching Roethlisberger is like watching your beloved pet struggle to walk in old age and you just know that day is coming where you have to take them to the vet and have them put down. It’s sad and it’s inevitable.

Finally, for Bills-Chiefs, part of me knows I should be taking the Bills to get over this KC hump with the way the Chiefs have turned the ball over and played terrible on defense. Home-field advantage just isn’t what it used to be either in this league. But I’m still rolling with the Chiefs (and will obviously have Buffalo bets too) because the offense is scoring at a historical rate and the Bills are a team they owned twice last year. I’m not sold on Buffalo’s defense, which was mediocre last year, being this great based on the competition so far. But we’ll see in what could be the game of the year in the AFC.

Final: Chiefs 31, Bills 27

NFL QB Injury History

~ scottkacsmar ~ 1 Comment

While starting running backs and some gifted pass catchers are dropping like flies to begin the 2020 NFL season, the most important position, quarterback, has been exceptionally healthy so far.

In fact, we’ve gone through training camp, the absence of a preseason, and now Week 1 without any noteworthy injuries to any of the league’s 32 starting quarterbacks. That’s an improvement from previous years like 2019 when Nick Foles was knocked out in Week 1, giving Gardner Minshew a quick intro to the job. In 2018, Foles started the season for Philadelphia while Carson Wentz wasn’t ready yet. In 2017, Andrew Luck never got ready and missed the entire season for Indianapolis. In 2016, Teddy Bridgewater’s gruesome knee injury suffered in practice ended his season before Week 1.

Hopefully this won’t be a jinx, but I updated the injury history data I’ve had on starters and even dug deep to include Ryan Fitzpatrick, who has only missed five starts to injury in his career. Below is the history for all 32 current starters, even including Joe Burrow who just made his NFL debut and plays his second game tomorrow. These are only injuries so any starts missed for playoff rest or getting demoted won’t show up here. Missed playoff games are also included.

Since these tables are large, the 32 players will be presented in three parts. The first table includes the eight unfortunate passers who have suffered at least two different injuries and have missed 10 or more games from them:

Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton have had a long injury history, but both avoided the real long-term absence until 2019 when they both missed the final 14 games. Both are back now and had good Week 1 returns on teams that I picked to win double-digit games and make the playoffs this year. Matthew Stafford also missed half of 2019 after not suffering any injuries since his first two seasons in the league when he was feared to be injury prone.

Our second group includes quarterbacks who had multiple injuries, but only missed 3-6 starts from them.

Fitzpatrick was a trip to research, because he’s been benched or demoted after keeping the seat warm more times in his career than he’s been injured. Drew Brees and Matt Ryan have been pretty close to injury free in long careers, but both had a slip up in 2019.

The last group is technically a combination of two groups: seven quarterbacks who suffered just one injury and 10 quarterbacks who have yet to miss a start to injury.

The latter 10 skew very young, but Philip Rivers (236) and Russell Wilson (144) have had incredible consecutive start streaks, and Dak Prescott and Jared Goff have both been very healthy since 2016. Let’s also not discount the fact that Kirk Cousins has yet to miss a start for an injury. He took Week 17 off for playoff rest last year.

As for the one-off injuries, it already happened to Daniel Jones and Dwayne Haskins last year as rookies. Tom Brady (2008) and Deshaun Watson (2017) had the more serious ACL tears, but otherwise have been rock solid in durability. The Drew Lock thumb injury last year was one of the few debatable ones. He injured his thumb in the preseason, but he wasn’t intended to start Week 1 with the Broncos bringing in Joe Flacco for considerable money. So his game count starts when Flacco’s season ended from injury and the team had to start Brandon Allen for three games before Lock made his debut and started the final five games.

Speaking of one-off freak injuries, Patrick Mahomes was very fortunate that his dislocated kneecap on a quarterback sneak only cost him two full starts in 2019, or otherwise that historic Super Bowl run may have never happened. Yep, it always comes back to Mahomes somehow.

Stay healthy in 2020, signal callers.