On Sunday, the NFL made a major announcement regarding the status of injuries. Teams will no longer report players as ‘probable’ when giving their injury reports throughout the week. Terms ‘questionable’ and ‘doubtful’ will still be used to identify the status of players on teams’ injury reports. Players listed as questionable will have roughly a 50% and over chance of suiting up come game day while those listed as doubtful will have less than a 50% chance to play.
Opposing teams will hate the new concept since it will make it harder for them to get an idea on who they should prepare for. Even more so, the announcement will not make fantasy football owners happy anytime soon. The idea behind the change is that the NFL believes it will provide more clarity for injuries. However true that may be remains to be seen, but be assured that it will have an inverse effect on fantasy football.
In the past, probable meant that there was about a 90% chance or better that a player would play in the coming week. To justify the reasoning behind their decision, the NFL declared that approximately 95% of the players listed as probable ultimately played in the coming week. So fantasy owners leaving a player in their starting lineup as probable was never often a concern. Only on rare occasions might a player be scrapped before game time.
Similar rules apply for players listed as doubtful, meaning it’s highly unlikely that a player would play that week and can be left out of the starting lineup. This will remain true but the hardest label for fantasy players to adjust to has always been the questionable mark. In the past, fantasy owners had to really keep tabs on a player’s status throughout the week to determine if starting them was a good idea or not. Now, it will be even more difficult to predict, and in some cases, impossible.
Suppose a player is slated to play Thursday night but is listed as questionable. In years prior, if a player was questionable, then it was pretty safe to assume that they would be held out of action on such a short week. Fantasy owners simply turned to their bench or found suitable replacements on the waiver wire or as free agents. Now, that questionable mark doesn’t really give us an idea on the true status of the injury. And coaches aren’t going to give us the satisfaction of letting us know in advance either. In fact, some coaches like Patriots head coach Bill Belichick have had a reputation for keeping the status of their players a mystery until the last possible minute.
Unlike other events involving New England, there is nothing illegal about hiding the severity of a player’s injury although injury reports are obligated by the NFL. However, if Belichick wants to label a player doubtful the entire week even though there’s a good chance they will play, he’s well within his right to do so. By rule, coaches must report their active and inactive lists no later than 90 minutes before kickoff.
Belichick could have a field day with the new rule and you can almost bet that he already has 22 starters listed as questionable. Critics may point to a lack of ethics behind the strategic move to mislead others into thinking a player is injured when they’re really not, but the strategy is intended to confuse the opposing coaching staff. Contrary to how some people may think, coaches don’t give a damn about fantasy football. Until it’s deemed illegal in the NFL rule book, then I’m okay with it.
The new rule though could have fantasy owners pulling their hair out stressing over what to do from week to week. Or if you’re like me where you don’t have hair on your head to pull, you’ll spend a lot of time picking at your beard. I just hope that I don’t end up pulling out patches because that could be bad. For those that don’t have hair on top or facial hair, I got nothing for you except good luck!
Kidding aside, the new rule will create an even bigger challenge for fantasy owners. While most of us have the experience of playing before and how to deal with injuries, the rule change will make it brand new for all of us. Injuries are a common theme in the game of football and almost unavoidable in fantasy so be sure to stay on track with the latest news. It’s going to be a tough task this season and judgement calls will surely need to be made. Champions will look at the new rule as an obstacle to overcome while whiners will see it as an excuse for poor performance. Don’t be a whiner!
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