Matt LaFleur wants to play his starters because NFL history suggests it can help avoid injuries
It's not just that the Packers got their asses kicked (Matt LaFleur's words) by the Saints and Vikings, the historical injury data suggests teams should play starters in the preseason.
“We got our ass kicked.”
Clearly, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur remembers how the 2021 and 2022 seasons started without preseason work for his team’s best players.
“It’s a different feel when you go out there, so I think it’s every opportunity to go out there, and just the process, I would say, of getting ready to go compete and play a collision sport; you gotta get your mind right.”
LaFleur points out their preseason schedule includes a night game, an early afternoon and late-afternoon game, allowing the players to prepare for a slew of regular-season schedules on game day. It doesn’t help the team during the regular season, though, if only the backups participate in the game-day simulation.
On Thursday, LaFleur confirmed that he expected some portion of the starters to play Saturday night at Lambeau Field, including quarterback Jordan Love. New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn announced that his team would do the same, setting up at least some snaps of ones versus ones.
“You gotta feel where your team is,” LaFleur said Thursday of balancing injury risk.
“My experience, I would say that I think it’s good for all of our guys to kinda go knock the rust off a little bit, understanding there’s a little bit of a risk.”
That risk may be overstated. LaFleur told reporters that he was told that if players get a certain number of reps, their injury risk in the first month of the season is reduced by a quantifiable factor.
“According to my sources that -- there’s a lot of injury data that supports playing guys in the preseason in regards to reducing the injury risk early into the season,” LaFleur said, citing consultation with his sports performance staff and the NFL.
According to The Leap’s research, there have been multiple studies done that suggest the COVID-attenuated preseason in 2020 and 2021 significantly and materially increased regular-season injuries.
One study from the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine found soft-tissue injury rates skyrocketed in the regular season after the COVID preseason. In the conclusion to that study, “Regular-Season Injury Rates in the National Football League After an Attenuated Preseason Due to COVID-19,” the authors point out that there were also increased injuries stemming from the 2011 lockout during CBA negotiations.
Another study, this one published in Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation (ASMAR), compared injury histories from 2016, 2018, and 2019 with the 2020 regular season, and the results were staggering. The COVID season saw 141 injuries in Week 1, 41 more than in the worst non-COVID seasons. Similar, though less stark, outcomes were found in Weeks 3 and 4.
It's not just that the Packers got their asses kicked (Matt LaFleur's words) by the Saints and Vikings, the historical injury data suggests teams should play starters in the preseason.
www.theleap.football