As part of the Sharp Football effort to inform subscribers on football, my contribution will be to educate and provide insider knowledge on injuries. Warren provides the best analysis, but that analysis is sometimes altered or derailed by injury. One week to the next the nature of a team may be changed due to the players available and their limitations. The goal here is to provide injury insight into players, teams, and games where it might modify an approach in a particular week.
All teams have now officially begun training camp. The first piece of news is roster announcements of Physically Unable to Perform and Non-Football Injury.
What is the difference between PUP and NFI? Physically Unable to Perform and Non-Football Injury is essentially the same thing. All players undergo an updated physical as they report. Either designation means the athlete is not cleared on his physical or not ready to practice. The difference is that for PUP, it is a carryover issue from last season or one that happened in OTAs. NFI just means the injury happened outside of football or was a carryover of a college injury for rookies (as it didn’t happen in the NFL). The distinction is clerical for teams in order to know which they are on the hook to pay (PUP) and which they could avoid paying (NFI). For subscribers to Sharp Football, the difference is not important. However, be aware of how sometimes NFI is used for players who report out of shape.
Is it a harbinger of an injury-marred season if a player starts on PUP (of NFI)? Not necessarily. Players can come off preseason/active PUP at any time. All this does is preserve the right to convert a player to regular season/reserve PUP. The former counts against the 90 man roster but a player may be removed from the list at any time as well. For example, J.J. Watt was placed on active PUP for the start of training camp but that is likely for “veteran rest” rather than injury concern. The latter means missing at least the first six weeks of the season and practice without counting as a roster spot.
The key is how quickly a player comes off PUP or NFI. In many cases, that happens in days, not weeks. The key for most teams is to have all starters active for snaps in the third preseason game. If a player is not activated before the second preseason game, that starts to be cause for concern. For example, the Dallas Cowboys have defenders Demarcus Lawrence and Byron Jones on PUP but have already stated neither will practice during the first two weeks of camp in California. Although the stated intention is to have both ready for Week 1, that makes for a small margin of error. Even if ready for the start of the regular season, that might not give enough time to be in “game shape” and to be 100% effective.
My input here is a culmination of 17 years of experience as an NFL team physician. After I examined a player on the field, on the sidelines, in the locker room, the day after and after an MRI, I would go upstairs and look at injury video for the week. Now I am able to reverse engineer and correlate video of injury into useful information on effectiveness and timeline for return.
I also will study any publically available information to augment my opinions. Everything from information at the time of injury, reports on recovery, video of rehab posted by the player, specific context of words used by coaches, and news from beat reporters. Often an additional source of information is from these beat reporters who call me with questions of their own and I get useful tidbits.
Just being an orthopedic surgeon is not enough. The key is to utilize my experience working for teams to now interpret what teams are really saying (or not saying). After all, if you are getting audited by the IRS, do you want a good accountant or a good accountant who used to be an IRS agent? As a former head team physician in the NFL, I act like the former IRS agent and have an insight into what matters in an audit.
In my next piece, we will review top medical issues coming into the season, which will include everything from Todd Gurley’s arthritic knee, Cam Newton’s shoulder recovery to whether Carson Wentz can finally be healthy and more.