Belichick: Practice limits hurt players

[bluedigger]

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Patriots coach Bill Belichick is blaming recently instituted NFL rules shortening offseason practice time for what he claims to be an increasing number of player injuries.

“I’m in favor of total preparation for the players for the season,” Belichick said during a conference call with Buffalo reporters this week in leading up to New England’s home game against the Bills on Sunday. “And I think that’s been changed significantly and, I would say, not necessarily for the better when you look at the injury numbers.”

Belichick said players are more vulnerable to being hurt because they’re less prepared, and described the limits placed on offseason workouts — including training camp — as being counterproductive.

“Personally, I think that’s taking the wrong approach,” he said. “You have a gap between preparation and competition level. And I think that’s where you see a lot of injuries occurring. We get a lot of breakdowns. We get a lot of situations that players just aren’t as prepared as they were in previous years, in my experience anyway.”

Belichick was specifically challenging several new rules negotiated into the NFL labor deal that ended an offseason-long lockout in 2011.

http://www.sunjournal.com/news/national-sports/2013/12/26/belichick-practice-limits-hurt-players/1470470?utm_source=Sun+Journal+List&utm_campaign=6afbe1bb68-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c59a67ec86-6afbe1bb68-195807618

[trotsky]

1. Hmm...

What’s in question is whether injuries are, in fact, on the rise in the NFL, as Belichick suggested.

Though he didn’t cite specific numbers, Belichick said he was citing “a matter of record not opinion,” in saying injuries league-wide have been on the rise over the past three years.

Seems like that should be data easy to collect - and information about the nature of the injuries and how they happened could be analyzed to see if they are a result of lighter practices or not, I would think.

Perhaps Belicheat has some tapes that would be useful in supporting his claim?

[hughee99]

2. Well, his name is Belicheat, so he must be wrong... and evil... with some nefarious purpose.

http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/nfl-severe-injuries-increased-every-year-from-2009-to-2012

David said his company has done consulting for the NFL Players Association in the past and received the data for this study from the union, but wasn't paid by it.

The study says there were 1,095 instances of injuries sidelining a player for eight or more days in 2009 - including practices and games in the preseason, regular season and postseason - and that climbed to 1,272 in 2010, 1,380 in 2011, and 1,496 in 2012. That's an increase of 37 percent.

He could be 100% wrong about WHY the injuries occurred or how to fix the issue, but it seems that the number of injuries would appear to be on the rise and that is at least somewhat documented.