ZACHARY O. BINNEY has a Ph.D. in epidemiology and wrote his dissertation on NFL injuries. He was born (and still lives) in Atlanta but blames his dad for making him a Miami Dolphins fan. Since he only developed his fandom in the post-Marino era, his happiest football memory involves Cleo Lemon and Greg Camarillo. You know the one. He has channeled his suffering into a passion for studying sports injuries. He has consulted for NFL, NBA, and MLB teams, written for FiveThirtyEight.com, and lost on Jeopardy! to a bus driver. During the days he is a freelance statistics instructor and analytics consultant for sports teams and other organizations.
A year ago at this time, the Alabama quarterback seemed certain to be the first player drafted in 2020. Then came a devastating hip injury that ended his collegiate career. Our injury expert Zach Binney looks for NFL players who suffered similar injuries and how (or if) they were able to recover.
This year's NFL Big Data Bowl asks participants to predict the yards gained on rushing plays. And that's great. But what if you want to know what causes those yards? That can be trickier.
What would an 18-game season really mean for injuries and career lengths? Not as much as most people assume.
Is it possible to use player, coach, and stadium data to perfectly predict player injuries in the NFL? No -- but analyzing all three at once can show some surprising trends, including that the Eagles (Carson Wentz aside) seem to be ahead of the curve in keeping their players healthy.
What does a player's status on the injury report really mean? To a large extent, that depends on which team he plays for, and what he does in practice during the week.
Bill Belichick says that players are getting hurt more because they are practicing less, but the numbers don't support that theory.
NFL football is a violent game, and traumatic injuries are unfortunate but unavoidable. But are bigger players more likely to be hurt than their smaller peers?
Once a player misses time due to injury, what are the odds that injury will haunt him in years to come?
Richard Sherman's torn Achilles was just one of a long list of injuries to both teams in Thursday night's Seahawks-Cardinals game. Was this an anomaly, or are Thursday games more dangerous and likely to cause injuries?
Zachary O. Binney tries to explain the rise in NFL injury rates over the past decade. Are players getting hurt more often? Or are teams doing a better job of diagnosing and reporting injuries?
