CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

[Diesel]

This year and seemingly in the past few years of late we're seeing an uptick in major injuries affecting each team's abilities to put the best squad forward. Question I have is with the reduced contact mandated in practice via the CBA and the shorter work days, are today's athletes not in "hitting shape" as much from year's past? The adage that the body needs to be conditioned to take and receive hits isn't something i think one can prove scientifically but it sure seems that with the reduction in week prep contact, the amount of crazy injuries sure has spiked.

Thoughts?

[boydo]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

I think it also has to do with the guys being faster & bigger equaling more force on contact. For a while we had some crazy injuries each season but once we changed conditioning staff it got better. We are getting way more torn Achilles than turf toes it seems.

[Sectionq]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

Could it also be a byproduct of the Canadian players and having to have too many starters? They brought on a brand new team last year. So Ottawa needed an entire starting roster of Canadians. They were allowed to take Canadians from other teams to help them out but those players still had to be replaced on the other teams. So all of a sudden all teams are replacing some lost starters with back ups that maybe aren't good enough or aren't ready to start yet. Canadian players are getting better and better every year but the CIS still doesn't produce enough Canadian players to meet the demand. There aren't too many teams if any that have a full compliment of the required Canadian starters plus enough back ups to replace them. Most teams have just enough starters and maybe a couple of back ups but we have all seen year after year that if a team suffers a few too many injuries to Canadians, they can be screwed. To bring on that many Canadians all at once has to have hurt every teams depth and if you have an Olineman as an example that was a back up that maybe needs a year or 2 to develop, then you thrust him into a starters role out of necessity, problems can happen.

Case in point. The Esks cut Brian Ramsay, he was unemployed. The Esks suffered a bunch of injuries to Canadian Olineman. They had to bring him back and he's on the active roster. He's 35 yrs old. You can't tell me there isn't a younger American who's probably better they couldn't bring in. But they needed the Canadian. McCallum is handling all the kicking duties for Sask. You can't tell me a 45yr old is the best option in North America for kickers. But he's Canadian so most teams like a Canadian kicker if they can get one. I'm not here to bash Canadians but I have to think the system will take awhile to catch up because instead of each team needing to swap out a few Canadians, the league needed an entire starting group plus all the other usual demand. So the drain on the system probably doubled or tripled all at once and there isn't a giant stock pile of Canadians just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring like there is Americans.

[Looner]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

Concussion awareness and some of the lawsuits starting to come out in major sport, I believe, also plays somewhat of a roll. How many times did a guy like Dan Keply step on the field when he shouldn't have and wouldn't be allowed to now.

[Diesel]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

I'm not saying guys need to bust heads out there, but the body does need to be in hitting shape. We're seeing injuries all over the league that makes one wonder if we've gone too far in the other way and are paying for it with lost man games piling up

[Diesel]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

League wide 6GIR


18 Crompton, Jonathan QB
9 Deslauriers, Eric WR
49 Finley, Jeffrey DL
3 Gilyard, Mardy WR/KR
81 Graves, Kyle WR
34 Hebert, Kyries LB
3 Hoffman, Cody WR
25 Knowles, Jamahl DB
97 Lavarias, Aaron DE
5 LeFevour, Dan QB
4 Marsh, Tanner QB
80 Rodgers, James WR/KR
16 Roy, Bryn LB
61 White, Ryan T
48 Woods, Bear LB
82 Zaleski, Jerod LS

8 Harty, Jake WR
16 Henry, Marcus WR
32 Robinson, Jermaine DB
43 Brown, Travis LB
44 Phillips, Justin DL
75 Williams, Jonathan DL
85 Carter, Matt

32 Durie, Andre SB
18 Fayson, Jarred WR
83 Johnson, Kierrie WR
48 Miles, Thomas LB
15 Ray, Ricky QB
98 Robertson, Tracy DL
87 Robinson, Zander FB
29 Steele, Curtis RB
12 Underwood, Brandon DB
75 Walker, Cameron DL
34 Waters, Swayze P/K

Brian Bulcke 95
Antonio Coleman DE
Andy Fantuz WR
C.J. Gable RB
Linden Gaydosh DT
Evan Gill DL
Mossis Madu Jr. RB
Kyle Miller DB
Johnny Sears Jr. DB
Spencer Watt WR

26 Burnett, Tony LB
52 Richardson, Louie DE
57 Tyler, Devin OL
90 Peach, Greg DE
92 Turner Jr., Bryant DT

35 Brown, Weldon DB
31 Bryan, Antareis DB
4 Durant, Darian QB
11 Emry, Shea LB
5 Glenn, Kevin QB
1 Green, Marshay DB
84 Haidara, Seydou Junior WR
52 Kankolongo, Nehemie LB
28 LeGree, Mark DB
24 MacDougall, Keenan S
80 Moore, Spencer FB
94 Sheffield, Cameron DE
88 Smith, Taj WR
51 Steinhauer, Levi DL

9 Cornish, Jon RB
35 St. Pierre, Tim RB
43 Caron, Max LB
44 D'Aguilar, Ben DL
57 Lavoie, Karl OL
58 Craighead, Brander OL
62 Harrison, Edwin OL
65 Federkeil, Dan OL
71 Crapigna, Tyler K
87 Charbonneau-Campeau, Simon WR
93 Johnson, Micah DL
99 Mace, Corey DL

7 Hawkins, Lavelle R
18 Morrah, Cameron R
59 Norman, Matthew C
67 Steward, Hunter G

13 Reilly, Mike QB
17 Chambers, Shamawd WR
28 Milton, Aaron RB
30 White, John RB
65 Rottier, Simeon OL
66 Wojt, Greg OL
88 Dawson, Skye WR

[stamphater]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

An interesting perspective by the OP.

I remember in 2001 we had half the damn team on the IR to the point we started a brand spanking new rookie in the West Final against Calgary. I think it's largely just bad luck...especially this season....as I have not seen a season injury-wise quite like this one.

[writfiler]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

Could it also be a byproduct of the Canadian players and having to have too many starters? They brought on a brand new team last year. So Ottawa needed an entire starting roster of Canadians. They were allowed to take Canadians from other teams to help them out but those players still had to be replaced on the other teams. So all of a sudden all teams are replacing some lost starters with back ups that maybe aren't good enough or aren't ready to start yet. Canadian players are getting better and better every year but the CIS still doesn't produce enough Canadian players to meet the demand. There aren't too many teams if any that have a full compliment of the required Canadian starters plus enough back ups to replace them. Most teams have just enough starters and maybe a couple of back ups but we have all seen year after year that if a team suffers a few too many injuries to Canadians, they can be screwed. To bring on that many Canadians all at once has to have hurt every teams depth and if you have an Olineman as an example that was a back up that maybe needs a year or 2 to develop, then you thrust him into a starters role out of necessity, problems can happen.

Case in point. The Esks cut Brian Ramsay, he was unemployed. The Esks suffered a bunch of injuries to Canadian Olineman. They had to bring him back and he's on the active roster. He's 35 yrs old. You can't tell me there isn't a younger American who's probably better they couldn't bring in. But they needed the Canadian. McCallum is handling all the kicking duties for Sask. You can't tell me a 45yr old is the best option in North America for kickers. But he's Canadian so most teams like a Canadian kicker if they can get one. I'm not here to bash Canadians but I have to think the system will take awhile to catch up because instead of each team needing to swap out a few Canadians, the league needed an entire starting group plus all the other usual demand. So the drain on the system probably doubled or tripled all at once and there isn't a giant stock pile of Canadians just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring like there is Americans.

I've always said that the rules requiring the requisite amount of "non-imports" on the roster mean that many more talented (& in a lot of cases cheaper) "imports" are cut in favour of keeping less-talented non imports. But in the interests of keeping it as the CANADIAN Football League, I realize that these ratio rules need to be there to some extent.

[ben_the_eskimo]

Re: CFL Injury Woes - Byproduct or Bad Luck?

I've always said that the rules requiring the requisite amount of "non-imports" on the roster mean that many more talented (& in a lot of cases cheaper) "imports" are cut in favour of keeping less-talented non imports. But in the interests of keeping it as the CANADIAN Football League, I realize that these ratio rules need to be there to some extent.

Yeah, I'm starting to think we may be forced to drop it to 6 if we have any hope of filling out a tenth team down the road.