NFL Injury data 2014-2017: Quick takes

Injuries are always a sensitive topic in the money driven NFL. I have always been interested in researching the data when it comes to NFL injuries.

A quick background on this data:

I scrapped this data off the internet and pulled regular and post season data from 2014 up until week 13 of 2017. For the purposes of analysis, I filtered out post season data and the "status" of the injury since apparently in 2016 they did away with a bunch of codes (like IR). I did this to get as much of an "apples to apples" comparison as possible.

With no particular question to answer, I was able to explore the data freely. One of the interesting visuals I produced is displayed below.

What this shows is the AVERAGE number of players each week above or below the NFL average (for that particular year) that were listed on the weekly injury report. For example... in 2016, the Bears had almost 5 players OVER the NFL average number of players reported injured each week. The average number of listed on the injury report per team: 2014 (4), 2015 (4.03), 2016 (5.17), 2017 (4.52).

In this second visual, I've zoomed in on some teams that are interesting to note. I took out teams that were +/- 2 if they had a mix of positive and negative (Cardinals, Colts, Seahawks, Packers, Giants, Cowboys, Saints, Ravens, Panthers, Broncos, Lions, Texans, 49ers, Raiders, Jets, Bengals, Browns, Broncos, Jaguars, and Chargers). I took out the Bills and the Dolphins because it looks like they had an abnormal year in 2016. That leaves us with some interesting "groups" to discuss.

First group: Decreasing injury rates that are already below average - Falcons, Chiefs, Rams, Vikings, and Titans

Second group: Decreasing injury rates that are above average - Bucs, Patriots

You see a pretty clear trend of reduced injuries compared to the league average year after year. It's especially significant for the falcons. The titans had a dramatic shift in the last two years and you can argue straddle the first and second group. I would also argue that perhaps these teams are getting YOUNGER age as far as average age goes. I also wonder if these teams have put in new injury prevention and recovery methods to help drive down the NUMBER and the IMPACT (how many weeks) of injuries. One interesting thing to note is that the five teams in the first group are doing pretty well at the moment.

Third group: Consistently high injury rates - Bears, Redskins

Fourth group: Consistently low injury rates: Eagles, Steelers

Addressing consistency, these teams might have more roster stability (especially at the starting spots)? Hard to tell quantitatively without doing a full analysis. One interesting thing to note is that the two teams in the fourth group are doing pretty well at the moment. 

All this makes sense of course... that the teams doing well are the ones who have been able to avoid listing players on the injury report. Fewer starters missing time is always a good thing.

Questions/observations/other notes:

• I wonder how roster turnover impacts these numbers?
• Starters vs "role players"? That would be very difficult to identify.
• Comparing this to average age (or perhaps average years in the NFL) would also be interesting
• I do want to take a look at the types of injury (requires some more data cleaning/consolidation) and severity of those injuries

I welcome any comments or feedback.