Armpits Hanging From Trees

I was over at a good friend's house this afternoon. Her one year old is just learning to walk. She's getting pretty good at walking (the one year old, my friend is already an accomplished walker) but running still eludes her, and the many battle wounds on her cheeks and forehead are testament to her perserverence. When I later got home I flipped on the intertubes and saw that Bronco linebacker Nick Greisen got knocked out for the year with some kind of knee issue. I suspect that running was involved.

I'm not particularly opposed to NFLers running about. I've read that running is quite healthy, in general. While injuries in the NFL happen to be well correlated to running, they are only well correlated in the sense that football games are well correlated to Sundays. Obviously, injuries are more about the collisions and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving. A predictable outcome when ~ 2500 two hundred and fifty pound men crash into one another for hours and days at a time.

but this isn't so much about that

Less than a week into official for real NFL practice, for most teams out of pads, there have already been a few injuries that will significantly impact their respective teams' fortunes. Let's take a look.

Greisen

Okay, the Broncos probably won't miss Greisen all that much but I needed an excuse to link his website which - much like Greisen's NFL career - hasn't been updated in three years. Greisen probably couldn't have been counted on to contribute much to the Broncos this year anyway, but his loss does cut into their depth - already dangerously thin due to the scorched earth policies of Xander and McDaniel. The Broncos already brought in Braxton Kelley as a replacement. SI describes Kelley as "undersized and very slow shedding blocks ... marginal in coverage" so it sounds like Denver will be just fine.

Tarvaris Jackson

I know, I know. He's just dinged up a little. I just think it's funny that so many of the Viking faithful are knitting nooses already. The downside to this injury is that it isn't serious enough to prevent Jackson from returning in time to start under center. packerfan and bearfan titter in their sleeves.

Stephon Heyer, Randy Thomas, Mike Williams

These three players constitute 40% of the Redskin starting offensive line, with the runner up in reserve. Washington released Jon Jansen and gave Heyer Jansen's spot at RT, Williams is also competing there. Thomas is penciled in at RG. None of these injuries appear to be season threatening, but they are debilitating and portend further injuries as the season progresses. Futhermore this seriously limits Zorn's ability to build line continuity, a lacking that prevented any complex pass-blocking schemes in '08. Washington is my pick to bottom out. This is a terribly old, terribly thin team that has suffered a lot of bad personnel decisions over the last few years, along with the tragedy to Sean Taylor. In 2008 they were the second oldest team in the NFL and were unusually healthy for a team that old, losing 13 starts to injuries by their offensive players. Their offensive line appears particularly vulnerable. They only have two younger players who figure to contribute meaningfully, Heyer at 26 and 2008 third rounder Chad Rinehart at 24 (already being called a bust). With Heyer, their other starters appear to be Samuels (32), Dockery (29), Rabach (32) and Thomas (33). Behind them is a wasteland of undrafted free agents and veterans who have kicked around the league. Last year Washington was awful in the games that Samuel missed with injury and he - along with several others - are at an age where injury is a part of their season. This team is one major or a few minor injuries away from disaster and they are already getting nicked up.

Adam Terry

Starting to get into the more significant injuries. Terry was competing with Oher for the starting RT gig in Baltimore before getting IR'd today with microfracture. Oher is going to have to grow up in a hurry now. If he struggles there really is no one in reserve to spell him, even for a few series, unless Baltimore tracks down a former Bengal for the second straight year. The demand for Levi Jones will probably increase as training camps continue and injuries mount. Chris Chester and Oniel Cousins are now the only people standing between the Ravens and a paper-thin offensive line.

Stewart Bradley

This is a big one. Bradley is overrated by Eagle fans (what's new?) but he is still an effective MLB in Philadelphia's 4-3. The real problem is that the Eagles really don't have a replacement for him on the roster. 6th rounder Joe Mays inherits his spot but it is unlikely that Mays can be the same type of playmaker as Bradley, who accounted for 151 tackles last year. Perhaps more importantly, Bradley was the primary signal caller for the defense that also lost veteran leader Brian Dawkins.

~

I have no feel whether there have been an unusual number of injuries so early in camp. There have been other, more minor injuries to Brandon Marshall, Ellis Hobbs, Beanie Wells. Braylon Edwards has been out for a week but so far no word on the extent of his injury. Albert Haynesworth missed time to get some needlepoint done on his knees. It will be interesting to see if this is a trend for a bad summer, or just an unusual couple of days.

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