Injuries Vs. Wins (Our Injuries are Overstated)

[*SHRacerX*]

(01-05-2021, 03:59 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I just came across this on Twitter, and I thought it was interesting.  Here is chart that shows the total amount of games missed (left to right) and the win total (up and down).



I can't exactly make out who had more injuries between us and teams like Tampa and Buffalo, as they're too close on the graph.  But I think we can all agree they're comparable in number.

Here are the teams who had less total injuries than us: Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Indy, Arizona, Houston, Pittsburgh.

Here are the teams who had a comparable amount of injuries: Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Tampa.

That leaves the remaining 22 teams with more games missed due to injury than us. 

I've seen quite a few people compare our situation to San Fran.  You might want to rethink that (look at them on graph).  They had over 300 missed games due to injury whereas we had around 125.

I've long held the belief that our injury situation is completely overstated by some who look for reasons to defend our lack of success.  This seems to illustrate my point rather well.

I saw this as well, but from what I can tell there is no delineation among WHO was injured.  Was it a special teams guy?  Or was it your #1 DT, TE, CB, RB, LT, and QB?  I am not trying to excuse the losses, but there was NO WAY the Bengals were going to compete with Baltimore with both Alexander and WJIII out.  For a defense that leans so heavily on their CBs with little to no pressure from an injured and underperforming defensive line, any backup CB would be toasted.  In the blowout losses to pitt and balt...that is exactly what happened.  

I am a little surprised how much ZT blamed injuries in recent press conferences.  I hate to admit it, but look at how pitt played the Browns with a lot of starters out.  That is coaching and, more than that, it is year-long preparation of ALL players so that when the time comes they would be ready to step in.  Once a Bengal starter is out, it is almost like they wave the white flag.

SF was similar only in that they had a ton of key front line starters out (CB, QB, etc) and they also played in a very tough division.  They did, however, have more guys on IR and more time missed from starters than any other team.  

I realize that Miami had slightly fewer injuries than the Bengals and everyone seems to be in love with their coach, roster, etc.  Sure, I would be thrilled if the Bengals won 10 games this past season but Miami won ONE game this year against a playoff team:  week 8, coming off a bye, where the LA Rams had to travel to Miami and play at 1pm.  The Rams were coming off a short week, having played on MNF the week prior, and then traveling cross country to play Miami.  Statistics show that when a team goes on the road on a short week, the lost straight up nearly 75% of the time, let alone crossing three time zones and playing at essentially 10 am their time.  That was EASY money as the Rams were favored in that game.  

As Nicomo and I have been bantering about on another thread, Miami is still in a great position moving forward with a lot of picks in this draft, but they are not light years beyond the Bengals.  If they played in the AFC North and weren't playing a last place schedule from 2019, they may very well had been 4-11-1 also.  

Still, a very interesting graph.  I just thought I would try to add some context to those injury hours.   For the REAL BIG NERDS out there, it would be interesting for someone (hell not me...) to calculate the "dropoff" in PFF ranking from starter to injured player for all those hours.  That would really help to indicate your quality depth (or lack thereof).