Redskins injuries hard to source, but trend easy to spot

To win in football, a team needs, at the very least, a degree of good health.

Injuries are inevitable. They will happen, and they will be met with a response of some sort. Individually, teams must try to withstand, and they do this first by preparing a backup to step in and help the team function with little turnover. Once the backup is injured, however, the situation deteriorates rapidly. New faces are brought in, unfamiliar with the schemes and their teammates, and often of lower pedigree. Teams lose depth. Teams lose cohesion. And ultimately, teams lose.

For most, it never goes this far. But the Washington Redskins are different.

Over the course of the 2017 and 2018 seasons, 70 total players missed at least one game due to injury. Of those 70 total players, 54 were on injured reserve at some point, and 50 ended their season on injured reserve. There is a glaring trend in Redskins Park, over the past two years. Injuries have not been a simple, subtle side note. They have been the main story, in both seasons.

The Redskins have taken it upon themselves to enact measures combatting this startling short-term trend. They brought in outside consultants to review their injury protocol and recovery parameters. They’ve at times adjusted practice habits accordingly, in efforts to preserve player health.

Of course, just because the Redskins might have tried to stymy injury concerns, it doesn’t mean that they were doing it the right way. The subject matter surrounding what is right in terms of medical preservation, however, falls beyond the expertise of most. For now, all that we know is this: The Redskins have tried to stop the trend. They’ve tried, and they’ve failed.

Perhaps this is because injuries can be so chaotic in nature. So unpredictable. So non-discriminatory. Even if you have the best genes, and the best eating habits, you’re still at risk. How do the Redskins stop J.J. Watt and Kareem Jackson from sandwiching Alex Smith‘s leg and snapping the bone? How do they stop Brandon Scherff from pushing too hard, at a bad angle, and tearing his pectoral in the trenches? How do they stop Reuben Foster from taking one wrong step on the field at OTAs?

These questions are not to elevate the Redskins beyond blame; they are mostly rhetorical. But these questions should at least shed light on the pure entropy that player health can become. Fingers will be pointed. Chad Engelhart was promoted to the position of head strength coach before 2017, when the injuries flared up. The field condition, both in the stadium and at the practice area, has often been a source of controversy. Perhaps there are changes he can make, or changes the team can make. But ultimately, the influence of one man does not encapsulate the entirety of the Redskins’ injury troubles. To the annoyance of many, injuries are often by chance. Luck. Foster’s injury, as brutal in severity as it was in timing, is a painful reminder.

For the Redskins, there is no one source from which all these injuries materialize. But the trend is very real. It is very debilitating. And after it took the team’s starting inside linebacker on the first day of organized team activities, it shows no signs of stopping.