Aaron Rodgers, Odell Beckham Jr., Richard Sherman, David Johnson, Joe Thomas, Jamie Collins, and Deshaun Watson. Although this might sound like a Pro Bowl roster, it is instead a list of players who have been lost for most of, if not all, of the remaining NFL season.
Each of these players are all arguably top five at their respective positions and they are only the ones I was able to recall off the top of my head. With so many top tier players getting injured, it's forcing many in NFL circles to ask, why? With millions of dollars being invested in these players and their teams, the best way to protect these players is the top priority.
The more commonly accepted answer to this conundrum is that players are less physically prepared for on-field play, as a result of the terms expressed by the Collective Bargaining Agreement(CBA). For those who aren't familiar, a CBA is a labor agreement that, in the case of the NFL, reflects the negotiations between the NFL Players Association(NFLPA) and NFL team owners.
The CBA covers specific aspects of life as a professional football player including what the owners can require of the players. The idea is that players will have their voices heard when it comes to exactly how they foresee the safest and most effective ways for them to play the best that they can play.
Most recently, in 2011, major changes were implemented that restricted the amount of offseason work the players would be required to endure. In theory, the reasoning behind this was that the players would undergo the minimum amount of work required of them during the offseason for them to maintain their on-field effectiveness.
This agreement was made in effort to prevent players from being injured and ruining their careers. Statistically, the opposite is true.
Throughout the entirety of the 2011 NFL season, the season prior to the current CBA, there were 25 torn ACLs across the league. That number was broken in the preseason of the 2017 NFL season with 31. The current count this year is at 45, not quite near the alarming number of 63 in the 2013 NFL season, but it's not far off. In addition to this, an astounding number of high profile players are being taken off the field with season-ending injuries as told by the list at the beginning of this article.
At this point, I feel as if it needs to be asked, why would the current CBA be written in an effort to protect players when it has done nothing but put their bodies and careers in greater danger? It seems to me that some sort of research is needed in preparation for this decision in order to prevent this very result.
This evidence really makes me question the legitimacy of the NFLPA. For some time now, the NFLPA hasn't been the model of efficiency, especially when compared to the NBAPA. NBA players are signing 40 million dollar contracts these days while NFL players are severely damaging their bodies and it's no secret that NFL contracts do not provide the same financial security that other contracts in the major sports do. So who made this call? It seems as though no one is benefitting from this agreement, so I can't even make the claim that this is another money grab for the NFL owners. It genuinely appears as if no real thought was put into this decision.
Ideally, major injuries will slowly taper down as the NFL season enters its final act. The unfortunate reality is that the current CBA will be in effect until the 2020 season. So if the CBA is truly what has been causing the increase in major injuries to players, there won't be a resolution until 2020.
My initial thought was that the large number of high profile injuries was simply coincidental, but the numbers certainly seem to correlate with the CBA.
The NFLPA and owners need to find a way to rally around this common issue. Otherwise, you should expect more problems for both sides. With the loss of its most recognizable faces, the NFL will likely continue to experience rating dips. With the climbing interest in basketball and soccer, football is losing the natural interest. The NFL is powerful enough to sustain some hits such as these, but for how much longer?
