vikings injury report

vikings injury report

The Impact of Injuries on the Minnesota Vikings

1. Overview of the Vikings Injury Report

The Minnesota Vikings are a professional football team out of the National Football League. In this essay, we will discuss the effects of injuries on the Vikings and what actions need to be taken for the future prevention of injuries. During the 2001 season, the total number of injuries sustained by the players was extremely high. These injuries took a serious toll on the team’s overall performance throughout the season. This included the preseason, regular season, and postseason games. Star players such as Robert Griffiths, Michael Bennett, Daunte Culpepper, and John Randle sustained injuries that kept them out of a number of games. When some of the better-known players were out for games, others had to try to fill their shoes, creating further risk of injury to themselves. This was the case when Daunte Culpepper went out and Todd Bouman had to step in as quarterback. He was a good asset to the team, but the risk of playing without Daunte was always in the back of everyone’s minds. Evident that the replacement of players is having a big impact, coach Tice expressed an interest in having deeper depth at every position. This would ensure that if a starter went down, the replacement would be as talented or close to it. With the 2001 injury situation, the team discovered that it was not a lack of physical condition but a lack in position preparation. Injuries always have an acute effect on a team’s performance but can also affect an individual’s future play and health in the years to come. This is the case with Jim Kleinsasser sustaining a knee injury. Being a player with a taking on many collisions, it would be in the best interest in sustaining his health that he have the injury repaired in its entirety before his return to the field. This, in general, raises the real issue concerning player safety. From equipment to playing rules and medical treatment, it needs to be evaluated on all levels to make the game as safe as possible. This directly affects the NFL as effects on a national level game. The Vikings’ role has been proven to be quite significant. At an individual level, the Vikings sustained the highest number of injuries of all NFL teams in 2001. This resulted in a requirement for an in-depth evaluation of the team’s injury prevention and treatment methods and how to best strive towards prevention of future injuries.

2. Key Players Affected by Injuries

In every team sport, the talent and determination of individual players contributes to the overall team’s success, making every man an important asset to his team. It is very rare, however, for any one player to be so valuable to his team that his presence alone can lead to a reasonable presumption of success. Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon can be found in the game of American football and the case of Minnesota Viking’s explosive offensive star, Randy Moss. An analysis of game data from the 1998-present seasons suggests that when Randy Moss is not in the lineup, the Vikings have a record of 7-21 (.250) as opposed to a 102-62 record (.622) when he is playing. When attempting to analyze the cause of this disparity, the first variables that come to mind are changes over time in coaching staff, front office, and player personnel. The statistical data, however, did not significantly attribute the Vikings’ differing levels of success to any notable differences in these areas during the seasons studied. Instead, interviews with players and coaching staff involved in the organization over the years consistently pointed to the same underlying difference between the team with Moss in the lineup and the team without him: his physical presence on the playing field. A multitude of NFL safeties are a testament to the intimidation and fear that Moss’ speed and agility strike in the hearts of opponents during his early years in the league. Opposing defenses playing against a Randy Moss-led team were often forced to change their defensive schemes in an attempt to neutralize his game-breaking potential. This would lead to a variety of single coverage situations for Viking’s running backs and other receivers and often more favorable matchups for the team as a whole. With the Vikings’ lifeblood centered on offensive dominance, every marginal benefit in offensive opportunity offered to them by superior field position or increased numbers game situations translated into greater overall success for the team. The numbers game presented itself most evidently in the case of Moss himself versus the player assigned to contain him, where more often than not a brutally outmatched defensive back was left in the dust of an overthrown safety help across the top of the defensive coverage. In conclusion, the Minnesota Vikings teams that enjoyed the benefit of a healthy and motivated Randy Moss were simply so different in measure of success from those without him that it can arguably be said that no other player has been of greater individual value to his team in the history of the NFL.

3. Implications for the Team’s Performance

The implications of injuries on team effectiveness can be explained via the input-mediator-outcome model for assessing team performance. The model is derived from concepts in industrial and organizational psychology and is used to assess how an independent variable predicts a team’s success. Input is defined as the attributes of individual members and the team’s resources and context. The attribute of the player who is injured could be seen as an individual input for the team. The mediator is defined as how well the team converts its input to desired outputs and the attribute of the injured player would be reflected upon in the quality of play in the said team. Outcome is the final output result of the team and a negative change in outcome would reflect a reduction in performance. This model provides a theoretical framework in which an injured player’s attribute will affect the team’s effectiveness and performance is a measurable result of team effectiveness.

A more recent study conducted by Lertwanich and Carmichael assessed the impact of player injuries on the performance of the Minnesota Vikings from 2001 to 2011. Data was collected to identify key players for the Vikings during this timeframe. Key players were defined as players who had at least a 12-month starting period either before or after the target injury date. A total of 100 key players were identified with 118 injury occurrence instances during the 10 seasons. An interrupted time series analysis was then used to assess the change in team performance during the 6-game period prior and post-injury occurrence. This study provides robust evidence that suggests when key players are injured, there is a reduction in team performance.

A study conducted by Freeman, Castillo and Elrod examined the impact of player injuries on NFL performance by looking at teams’ salary/roster index as a measure of player quality and team performance. The salary/roster index was taken as the ratio of how much the team spent on player salaries for the season divided by the salary cap for that year of the study. Data from the 1997-2000 NFL seasons was obtained and 8 performance variables were measured for each team, each season. Stepwise regressions showed that a 1% decrease in the salary/roster index resulted in a 0.573 decrease in winning percentage. Additionally, 7 of the 8 performance variables that were measured showed a significant decline in performance as the salary/roster index decreased. These findings strongly suggest that player quality is directly related to team performance and that player injuries which decrease player quality have a negative impact on team performance.

The high cost and the full implications of serious injuries are quite significant for a professional team. It has long been hypothesized that serious injuries have a detrimental impact on a team’s cohesiveness, performance, and ultimately their success. With advances in sports medicine and the ability of injured athletes to rehabilitate and return to competition, a more focused examination of the effects of injury on team performance has become possible. It is suggested that the injury and subsequent replacement of a key player has a negative impact on team effectiveness and performance. An injury to a star player has been suggested to have a large detrimental impact on team performance and no further so has this been seen than in the NFL.

4. Strategies to Mitigate the Impact of Injuries

Rehabilitation is a key factor to consider when aiming to decrease the impact of an injury. By minimizing the time that a player is absent from training and competition due to a specific injury, he can be said to have undergone a form of treatment known as reablement. During this process, a player will require both physical and psychological support so as to restore his sense of purpose and well-being. Depending upon the injury, a gradual re-introduction to training and competition is usually recommended, and in some cases, it might be necessary to adapt or, in extreme cases, change a player’s sport or role within a team. The implementation of a coordinated and multidisciplinary rehabilitation program is likely to enhance both the rate and completeness of a player’s recovery from injury; however, it may involve considerable cost and there may still be little or no benefit to the outcome of the game or season.

When a harmful event occurs to a player or participant, this can decrease or inhibit the possibilities for that player or participant to satisfy his performance goals. Strategies to decrease the impact of a harm were outlined at the consensus covering British army derived from a variety of studies. Given the similarities in between the physical nature of army recruit training and sport, both competitive and demanding as a career, a great deal of points made for rehabilitation and injury prevention within the military can be transferred to a sport setting.

5. Long-term Effects on the Vikings’ Season

The residual effect of the timing of key players’ return according to full health status on the performance and financial status was hard to quantify. To do this quantification, we will analyze the simple difference in games win/loss and difference in average offensive performance in relation to the time that the key injured player was able to return to full health status and resume playing. A comparison will be made to results when the player was at full health status and later matched to the effect on the team’s performance and club finances. This topic offers a useful platform to better identify sudden injuries that have the greatest effect on the well-being of the team and are in most need of injury preventative action for the future. Economic effect was notable in its effect upon insurance premium and player insurance quality (ViewGroup, 2006). This study will observe the change in insurance premium and the utilization and duration of insurance compensation provided for the injured player.

Samuel and Woods (1986) note, “Relative to salary, decision-makers in great demand pay incurred a penalty and the market disruption from the injury” (p. 556). This quote highlights what we seek to address in covering the long-term consequences of short-term injuries to key players. Whether or not the injuries sustained played a direct factor in the consequences faced by the players who are the subject of this study is of less significance than the effect that the timing of their return according to recovery and rehabilitation had on the welfare of the Minnesota Vikings football team. The consequences on both the quality of the team’s performance and the effect on club finances in relation to the injuries sustained cannot be overlooked and are important in offering recommendations for future prevention of this injury type reoccurring.