Injury data suggests the Seahawks will be better in 2017

The Seattle Seahawks were one of the NFL’s most injured teams in 2016. That suggest they’ll be better in 2017, but other teams they’re likely to regress.

Yesterday I took a Seahawks-centered look at the some league-wide injury data. Unfortunately, the chart from twitter that inspired that article was deleted by its creator. I had to replace it, and doing so led me to a few conclusions about the rest of the league.

Obviously there are some flaws here. Having a player go on IR in September is obviously more damaging to a team’s season than losing that same player in December. The Seahawks were also hurt a great deal more by losing Earl Thomas than they were hurt by losing Will Tukuafu. So keep in mind that this is just a snapshot of a more complex topic.

With that out of our system, lets look a few interesting things that stand out:

• Of all the teams that are one standard deviation or more above the league average for injuries, only Seattle was a playoff team.
• The 4 teams with the fewest players on IR all made the playoffs. 9 of the12 playoff teams in the playoff had an average number of players on IR or fewer.
• Of the three playoff teams with an above average number of players on IR, 2 (Houston and Det) we only 1 player above average.
• Tennessee and Oakland were both teams that “took a major step forward” last season. While it is true that their on-field play was better, it was also true that they were uncommonly healthy all season. They could regress next season entirely because of more injuries and it won’t be an indication that their talent has decreased.
• The Patriots had only 4 players on IR at the end of the season. Seattle had more than that coming out of training camp.
• Baltimore, Arizona and Carolina are all talented teams derailed by injuries. It is reasonable to assume that all three will be better next season just because of injury regression.
• Similarly, San Diego (now the LA Chargers) and San Francisco should be greatly improved next season just because their number of injuries should regress toward the mean. That doesn’t mean they’ll be good. It just means they’ll be less injured.

Next: Exclusive interview with Dante Barnett

The Seahawks need to make a point of getting younger to help them avoid the injury bug. Even so, simple regression should indicate that they’ll be healthier in 2017 than last season.