(article plus my editorial comment): healthiest/unhealthiest teams last 2 years

Study pegs Eagles as healthiest team last two years, Giants unhealthiest

by Darin Gantt on July 3, 2015

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/07/03/study-pegs-eagles-as-healthiest-team-last-two-years-giants-unhealthiest/

Maybe the smoothies work. And maybe Tom Coughlin should try one.

The folks at Bleeding Green Nation have passed along a chart that suggests the Eagles are the healthiest team in the NFL over the last two seasons, while the Giants have been the most unhealthy over that span.

The chart is based on adjusted games lost, a formula created by FootballOutsiders.com that uses injury reports and players placed on injured reserve to quantify how available players are to their teams.

Eagles coach Chip Kelly has put plenty of emphasis on sports science, and using nutritional supplements for players to keep them at their best. And old school coach Coughlin has been criticized for not adopting new methods, which this study would seem to back up.

While there’s something to be said for doing everything possible to keep players well, football remains a collision sport and an amount of dumb luck can still make a big difference, particularly if that luck keeps a good quarterback on the field.

While it stands to reason that the best teams might be the healthiest, the next six teams on the list behind the Eagles are the Jets, Ravens, Bills, Browns, Vikings and Rams. And if you look at the Giants’ neighbors at the bottom of the chart, the Colts are 30th, and have managed to perform at a high level.

Obviously you’d rather be well than injured, but it’s unclear if all the shakes and Navy SEAL training the Eagles go through correlates to success on the field.

Note that AGL is a metric created by Football Outsiders which uses injury report and injured reserved data to determine how a team is impacted by injury.