Guy's a great guest. The Haberman & Middlekauff podcast used to be my favorite. Seeing both succeed now is like having followed an indy band that hit it big.
Regarding injuries, it's better to look at correlations before diving into ungrounded causation rationales. The prior two NFL Collective Bargaining Agreements (2011 and 2020) sought to reduce preseason activities to reduce player injuries by increasing recovery times.
They have been an objective and miserable failure. Here are the some of the 2020 restrictions:
(1) A five-day heat acclimation period with no pads.
(2) 5-hour limit on padded and full speed practices.
(3) No more than 3 consecutive days of practice in 3 out of 5 weeks of camp.
(4) No more than 2 consecutive days in the other 2 weeks.
(5) Joint practices with other teams limited to 4.
(6) A mandatory 1 day off every 7 days, with 2 days off in the first week.
(7) No more than 16 days in full pads per training camp.
These, along with a reduction of the preseason to 3 games which most starters rarely if ever participate in were supposed to decrease injuries. They haven't.
Despite these preseason restrictions, injuries in the NFL have steadily increased. Staring at the data quickly yields the insight that simply adding more down time to NFL activities is not protective of player health. Other sports show a similar result.
In baseball, pitch counts, and 5- and 6-man rotations have not resulted in reduced pitcher injuries. To the contrary, they continue to increase at record levels and are now widely viewed as constituting a crisis for the sport. Nor have fewer games played and load management efforts in the NBA reduced player injuries. Achilles tendon ruptures in particular have risen dramatically across sports over the past 15 years.
While over training can certainly injure a player, over indexing to "bubble wrapping" players appears equally harmful. Again, causation is difficult to establish without greater investment and study. However, the correlation seems clear - having players do less of their activities does not protect them from injuries over the long haul.
Waiting for the pod when Ethan brings his skeptic soccer takes to Alexis Lalas
Guy's a great guest. The Haberman & Middlekauff podcast used to be my favorite. Seeing both succeed now is like having followed an indy band that hit it big.
I can't not comment on this, but did Ethan say he was reading contract data from "Sport rack"?
It's a dumb name of a site, but spotrac is pronounced like "spo-track" for reasons that I never fully understood.
I really enjoyed this. I am going to check out his YouTube.
Regarding injuries, it's better to look at correlations before diving into ungrounded causation rationales. The prior two NFL Collective Bargaining Agreements (2011 and 2020) sought to reduce preseason activities to reduce player injuries by increasing recovery times.
They have been an objective and miserable failure. Here are the some of the 2020 restrictions:
(1) A five-day heat acclimation period with no pads.
(2) 5-hour limit on padded and full speed practices.
(3) No more than 3 consecutive days of practice in 3 out of 5 weeks of camp.
(4) No more than 2 consecutive days in the other 2 weeks.
(5) Joint practices with other teams limited to 4.
(6) A mandatory 1 day off every 7 days, with 2 days off in the first week.
(7) No more than 16 days in full pads per training camp.
These, along with a reduction of the preseason to 3 games which most starters rarely if ever participate in were supposed to decrease injuries. They haven't.
Despite these preseason restrictions, injuries in the NFL have steadily increased. Staring at the data quickly yields the insight that simply adding more down time to NFL activities is not protective of player health. Other sports show a similar result.
In baseball, pitch counts, and 5- and 6-man rotations have not resulted in reduced pitcher injuries. To the contrary, they continue to increase at record levels and are now widely viewed as constituting a crisis for the sport. Nor have fewer games played and load management efforts in the NBA reduced player injuries. Achilles tendon ruptures in particular have risen dramatically across sports over the past 15 years.
While over training can certainly injure a player, over indexing to "bubble wrapping" players appears equally harmful. Again, causation is difficult to establish without greater investment and study. However, the correlation seems clear - having players do less of their activities does not protect them from injuries over the long haul.
Tell Guy to plug in future.