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Drafting for Injury?


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After reading a note in today's DDN about Askew being PUP'd along with this year's 7th rounder Fanene, it occured to me to go back and look at the Lewis-era drafts. One thing that stands out is his knack for picking guys who turn out to have injury issues.

We've already lost Weathersby and Abdullah from '03 because of injury (admittedly, Weathersby was non-football-related, the worst case of bad luck I've seen in a while). And Steinbach needed elbow work after his good rookie season, and was much less effective last year. Supposedly it's all better now; we'll see.

'04 remains an injury disaster zone: Perry, Ratliff, Miller, Landon J., Askew, and Brooks all either playing hurt, missing time, or missing most/all of the season because of injuries. And Pery, Miller, and Askew are still hurting now; in fact Miller has more surgery now scheduled.

And of course, we've already PUP'd Fanene from this year's draft.

Overall, that's 10 out of the 27 picks we've had in the last three years (including 1 first, 2 seconds, and two thirds). This seems like a pretty poor performance. Are the Bengals not paying enough attention to injury isues when scouting players? Or have we just had really bad luck? :unsure:

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I definitely believe that injuries are a result of training problems. Look at the Browns under Butch Davis - their players have an extremely difficult time staying healthy. I'm not sure if it's actually the players innate ability to stay healthy - I think more is related to how they train and prepare.

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In some of these cases the team and player may have agreed to be put on PUP with minor injuries to stay with the team and not have to go on the practice squad. Just my opinion, but Wilkerson seems to fit this idea. He would have been picked off our squad in no time flat, now he has a chance to learn the system get healthy and come back to compete for playing time. The desire to play for Marvin Lewis seems to have players doing things that have not happened to the Bengals before.

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I definitely believe that injuries are a result of training problems. Look at the Browns under Butch Davis - their players have an extremely difficult time staying healthy. I'm not sure if it's actually the players innate ability to stay healthy - I think more is related to how they train and prepare.

I don't doubt that's played a role. I remember after the 2003 season, which was a very injury-free year overall, being alarmed when they let Kurt Schultz go to the Vikings. I was thinking, damn, we just got this fixed bringing in him and Chip Morton, why risk screwing it up? And we've had injury problems ever since. I wonder if they didn't lose a hidden gem in Schultz?

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Edward G is right about the Browns, ever since coming back we have had so many injury problems that just decimate the team. I think it all deals with training personally.

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