NFL Injury Report - CMC, Gibbs, Puka + more

what is good deepo Chona Sportsman analytics bringing you another round of NFL injury updates thank you very much for joining now let's get it [Music] popping now we start with the biggest name in fantasy and that is none other than Christian mcaffrey so he's returned to practice the timeline here suggests that everything they've been telling us this off season is true meaning that his calf strain is probably relatively minor the data favors him playing week one at about 100% but the concern with these calf strains and especially for a running back who's really on his toes pushing off for agility is that there is a nonzero reinjury risk and that is somewhere around 15% for the first eight weeks of the Season overall though I think for those who are drafting still taking Christian mcaffrey at the 101 totally reasonable move and I would plug and play him week one without hesit then we have jir Gibbs so the data here projects that he's probably playing week one at about 90% efficiency the key however is that running backs when they first come off of hamstrings do tend to see a little bit lighter workload that first week back a little bit extra value for David Montgomery and DFS the reason for that lighter workload probably has to do with reinjury risk hamstring strains especially for running backs do tend to recur and jir Gibbs has actually had this happen in his past so you combine those two factors and jir Gibbs is looking at a 20% reinjury rate over the first half of the Season then we have puka nakua so more optimism here John mcf's comments this offseason have suggested that this was a an injury to his Bersa over the knee which is like a protective sack it's not structurally dangerous to play through but it can annoying sometimes painful and it can swell up when aggravated so with that being said we wouldn't expect any production dip for week one or significant real inseason risk of Puka missing time as this season progress progresses the other aspect of this is that Shawn McVey is rated on coacheak index as having a 90% accuracy rate for his injury uh comments and discussions and therefore it just further strengthens our confidence in puka nakua going into this season then we have jayen Wadd now the interesting thing about Jaylen waddle there been a little bit vague with the reports everything so far has suggested that this is a mild injury and he came out with a sleeve on his calf so even though they never formally reported it to us we do suspect that this was a mild calf strain that he was playing through now Jaylen wad if you look at his last season he was very frequently on the injury report often missed practice even but he usually played through and as a result he probably played at less than 100% so you probably saw stats that aren't reflective of a full performance of Jaylen Wadd now he's likely 100% going into week one again with these calf strains and especially for a wide receiver there's about a 15% re injury rate those first eight weeks back but with that being said we wouldn't necessarily drop waddles ranking and we definitely would not bench him if you have him then we have Jaylen Warren so the data here favors him playing off of his hamstring similar to jir Gibbs at about a 90% efficiency per touch the key though again running backs tend to see fewer touches that first game back so you may look for a little bit of of a boost to Nai Harris and Jaylen Warren and nii Harris both are kind of neck and neck to begin with so again a little bit less Touches for Jaylen Warren probably means a little more for Nai a 15% reinjury risk those first 8 weeks is the key with Jaylen Warren then we have a pretty promising report on Christian Watson so he was dealing with hamstring and recurring hamstring injuries over the last year and really more than that now he has reportedly not missed a single offseason practice and that suggests that what he worked on this offseason meaning that hamstring strength asymmetry has really taken effect and done a good job and the data here really does suggest that that should occur so going into this off season when they sort of diagnosed the problem for Christian Watson they said he had a 20% strength difference side decide and that's a lot now when we test athletes for return to sports we find that a 10% difference is really the key Threshold at which their reinjury rate lowers a lot and so with Christian Watson he's now at reportedly about an 8% difference so that's extremely promising data suggests that it should lower his injury risk going into this coming season so we have Rising optimism for his ability to stay healthy then Roman Wilson of the Steelers so he was coming off of what looked from the pictures and video that like a high ankle it certainly has behaved like a high ankle in the sense that they've rested him pretty significantly and even now he's only practicing in limited capacity the data does slightly favor him playing week one at about 55% chance that will either increase or decrease based on subsequent practice reports this week now if he's active we would expect a dip in his targets and efficiency so each of those takes about a 15% dip leaving him somewhere in the 65 to 70% total production range for his Baseline capacity the other key is that you often see an elevated injury risk and with these high ankles especially with young players wouldn't be totally surprising for the Steelers to work him back in slowly just as a result of managing that reinjury risk next up is Jonathan Brooks now this is my personal favorite player to stash on the IR and then use him when he comes back now the data favors returning week five there is typically a four game ramp up and we definitely saw this with Bree Hall off of his ACL last year the initial timeline meaning when if Jonathan Brooks comes back at week five our data favors him being at 85% explosiveness and 85% meaning per touch efficiency in production now that ramps up by the midpoint of the season to hitting his 90% point and if you look at the the timeline for his touch is that also projects to ramp up around the same timeline meaning that week nine onwards he's likely to have an unrestricted workload he's a high draft pick good athlete strong running back we're not totally sure about the offense but there's some reason for optimism there and with that Jonathan Brooks expects to have unrestricted workload good efficiency on a per touch basis so we like the way his back half of the season is shaping up and then we have Josh DS of the Colts dealing with a high ankle we got some vaguely positive comments from coach St Shane styken and that does suggest that he's progressing well uh however it's the data still does slightly favor him sitting week one and that's at about a 60% clip now the more likely return here week one certainly possible but more likely would be returning week two or week three the other aspect of the Downs injury that's important is very much like Roman Wilson that we just talked about these young receivers coming off of high ankles the key is them being able to cut and turn and make those routes as crisp as possible coming off of these rotational injuries so as a result of all that you think that they would play it on the slower side again with Josh DS we're looking for his return to Performance more like week three week four but returning to the field most likely week two next up is Christian Kirk so he's got a mild CF and that timeline he was only out for a couple of weeks from practice and that timeline really does confirm that this was in fact a mild severity he's had a soft tissue history in the past he's plays a position that is a little bit prone to soft tisue injuries meaning wide receiver and he he's not up there in age but he's not young either he's about 28 years old now the reinjury rate when you factor all of that in is about 20% his first 8 weeks back so Christian Kirk probably playing week one probably pretty solid when he's out there but there is some risk associated next up we have Maran Lloyd so he practiced for two days in a row off of his hamstring keep in mind this was a re-aggravated hamstring so they resting him on Tuesday and I think their hope is that he ends up sustainably back here it really strongly suggests that they are not going to push him all the way into the game I think he does the data does favor him playing week one by a little bit uh the key though is going to be that Wednesday practice report and we'll see if that holds up if he practices in limited capacity then we would anticipate that most likely Marshon Lloyd suits up but either way we're likely seeing a limited workload here so I would be avoiding Marshon Lloyd in most formats next is Curtis Samuel so he's had a turf toe injury he's been dealing with for a few weeks he's practiced in a limited fashion and that is kind of promising in the sense that it means he's trending towards playing but coming off of the turf toe for a wide receiver you have to imagine it's really involved in the way you push off and explode in in and out of your Cuts so wide receivers typically see a performance hit usually about 20% in their initial return next up we have a pair of comeback Player of the Year candidates first up Kyler Murray and this is a big time sleeper opportunity uh huge Target for for me in pretty much all draft formats now he's plus 2,000 on draftking Sportsbook for comeback Player of the Year in my opinion pretty solid Darkhorse candidate there and the reason for that aside from the fact that they've upgraded the offense adding Marvin Harrison adding Trey Benson as well you look at Kyler Murray's year 2 post ACL and the data on this does project a return to his pre-injury rushing explosiveness now that holds true for running backs and for quarterbacks and if you look at Kyler Murray and some of the comments that he made towards the end of last year in this off season they're pretty convincing that he didn't fully trust that knee as he tried to make his cuts and for that reason I would say Kyler Murray if he's back and cut trusting the cuts that he can make I think you're looking at a pretty high rushing ceiling here and then another high rushing ceiling Anthony Richardson of the Colts so he's plus 700 for comeback player of the year the data here is in his favor in the sense that it does suggest a return to his pre-injury throwing strength and accuracy now to be determined really if his pre-injury strength throwing strength and accuracy is good enough to really excel in the NFL to the level that you would need to win comeback player of the year the other part of this though is that the question very reasonably is Anthony Richardson injury-prone he played basically four games last year and had two injuries and the key though is that Anthony Richardson if he has learned to slide that lowers his injury rate drastically so we find that rushing quarterbacks are not necessarily at a higher injury rate than pocket quarterbacks the key though is how they approach hits so in the data the ones who lower their shoulder they face injury rates similar to those of running backs meaning they miss about two games per year on average and the ones who slide or run out of bounds or in other ways avoid hits they tend to have a much lower injury rate actually even lower than pocket-based quarterbacks probably because they're Elusive and they can run around Escape pressure and Escape hits as well so with Anthony Richardson there's a lot to be learned about his playing style how it's changed and how that affects him going forward and also his play quality frankly isn't good enough to be in the NFL and at a high level now for me at plus 700 I think there just plenty of other value for this particular bet but it's not an unreasonable bet to take then we have another quarterback Trevor Lawrence so the reason we're talking about him he's not injured right now we look at his 2023 with a giant grain of salt and the reason for that if you look at his injuries week six knee contusion week 13 pretty significant high ankle week 15 concussion week 16 AC joint spraying of his shoulder all of those are very real injuries and if you look at them everything other than the concussion would be expected to have hurt his performance so Trevor Lawrence we we think that you can't really look at his 2023 as highly reflective of who he is as a quarterback now so looking a lot more promising he's fallen down draft boards pretty significantly but looking a lot more promising as we go into this season next up we have Romeo dos of the Packers so they're playing on Friday night he's got a hand contusion but reportedly still practicing and still catching in practice so because he's still catching despite this hand contusion we are suspecting this is probably a low severity injury and that he's likely playing week one next up a couple of defensive players first Christian barmore of the Patriots so we got a lot of questions about this one he's got blood clots was the diagnosis it's a potential potentially very dangerous diagnosis that can kill even a perfectly healthy person if it's not treated promptly and somewhat aggressively uh there's a lot of variability here but you may remember Chris Bosch a few years back in the NBA who basically missed multiple Seasons his career was entirely changed by the diagnosis of blood clots and that's because sometimes you got to go on blood thinners and that is very dangerous for a football player to play through now we would lean towards an extended period away from football obviously bigger issues to sort of be settled here medically but hopefully Christian barmore is okay hopefully he will be back but we'd be so surprised if it is this season then we have the Dolphins Bradley chub so he's a pass rusher he's post ACL happened relatively late in the year and all of these factors together expect a major dip in his year one post ACL now with that being said data does favor him returning probably in November as the most likely and early November is really what our algor predicts here but there's a lot of variability especially for defensive players because they're not just having to deal with planned cuts and changes of Direction but they're constantly having to react and as a result these injuries acl's High ankles do tend to affect them a little bit more than the offensive side and that's all we got for today thank you again for joining if you got questions for us drop them in the comment section or hit us up on Twitter and IG until next time see you then