Forget the Game, what about the F...ing INJURIES?!

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by dgack

I was just thinking it would be interesting to try and quantify in numerical terms the losses this team has sustained to key personnel throughout the end of last season and beginning of this one, as compared to any other team.

Perhaps the problem lies not in the number of injuries or even the specifics of who got injured, but that our talent isn't well distributed among the different strings of players.

Obviously first-stringers are supposed to be better than second-stringers, but it really does seem like we are a top-heavy team who has a huge dropoff in talent level (or experience, or both) beyond our starters. I'm sure this is true of many teams but it seems like the great ones, the successful ones, do not have nearly as much of a drop when players go out.

Indy, for example, lost Edgerrin James and Dominic Rhodes to free agency, Marvin Harrison to injuries, plus at least a few other notables on defense, to say nothing of any line players they may have had injuries. And I think they have managed to win a few games this year.

True enough. However, we are not Indy and JC is no Peyton Manning. For a team that relies on it's O-line to pound the rock, losing the starting right side of the line is devastating. Call it an excuse and say that we should have more depth if you like, but I cannot help but think that this team which ran the ball so well in 2005 and 2006 despite the lack of a passing attack is having a lot of woes because of its inability to run the ball behind a patchwork line.