With the Colts Injuries Piling up, It's Time for a new Strength and Conditioning Team

Foster Gonzo Bullitt Brackett and Sims are all undersized for their positions. Colts gotta bulk up. Strength and Conditioning could not hurt.

It’s not that the Colts are number 1. It’s that Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Detroit are 2, 3, and 4. It could be that “bad” defenses are prone to injury. I do find it interesting that 4 teams in such close proximity to each other, are consistently bitten worst by the injury bug.

I’ve heard that Anthony Castonzo didn’t miss a single game in his college career due to injury. He had to come to the Colts to be bitten by the injury bug. I’ve also heard similar for Ijalana.

FWIW, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Cleveland rank among the worst cities in the US for air pollution:
http://www.citymayors.com/environment/polluted_uscities.html
Of course, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis are bad too…. so who knows. It’s just a thought I had…

This great franchise has been decimated by injuries – and the fans of NFL football suffer for it. It cannot get any worse for Indy.

I don’t believe that a new conditioning program will help prevent these injuries, its just the way it is in pro football these days – quality players are dropping like flies… which really sucks.

This is one of the best articles I have ever read on this site! (or any site for that matter) I agree, something seems odd about the number of injuries that we recieve. Any idea what is the number of players that use their own strength and conditioning coach and are they allowed to use “their” docs vs. team docs? I think I remember reading something about Gonzo and how he reunited with his former S&C coach this off season. Now clearly it didn’t work…but I tend to think that is undermining the Colts training staff. I’d love to see some “new techniques!” Clearly, what they are doing now IS NOT WORKING! This injury thing is way beyond bad luck… and again I agree. Someone needs to either find a new way to help the players to prevent things like this or…heads need to roll with the training staff. Just MO. Thanks again for this great write-up!!!!!! Go Colts!

have occurred early in this young season. Much of this can be attributed to a shortened offseason, training camps, etc. Some of it is just plain dumb bad luck.

Peyton Manning – done for the season (neck injury): The rigors of the offseason negotiations and lack of time for Manning to undergo his normal training routine could be causes of this. Plus, it really isn’t something that can be held to a strict time schedule.

Melvin Bullitt – done for the season (shoulder injury): Pre-existing injuries hamper players going forward. We know this. This is not a new injury and, thus, can’t be treated as something the trainers could prevent.

Gary Brackett – done for the season (shoulder injury): These things happen. A legitimate injury. You can argue this either way.

Anthony Gonzalez – probably will never play again (too brittle): Your answer is in the answer. Too brittle, too whatever. This probably has very little to do with the training staff as well.

Eric Foster – done for the season (dislocated ankle): Incidents like this occur. Really, this can’t be put on the trainers either. The gruesome nature of this injury is its own testament to the inability of staff to prepare and fix all things in football injuries.

Fili Moala – out indefinitely (ankle injury): Again, short offseason workouts.

Ernie Sims – out indefinitely (knee injury): Same as above.

Kerry Collins – out indefinitely (some sort of concussion like head injury): I, personally, think this could be a bit of a smoke screen. Maybe he is having some symptoms, but I honestly think they tried to fix this offense with an aged quarterback and realized Painter needs the reps.

Ryan Diem – out indefinitely (ankle injury): Meh, no major loss anyway. Don’t bemoan players you wouldn’t stand behind.

Drake Nevis – injury to be determined (back tightness): These final three are new, so you can’t really say much about the training and conditioning staff. The back, meh, it doesn’t worry me. Inside defensive linemen get stretched and twisted, so this could be a muscle pull or strain and he could recover quickly.

Anthony Castonzo injury to be determined (ankle injury): Ankles, again, are something that happens often in the NFL. Not too concerning unless it is something very major.

Benjamin Ijalana injury to be determined (knee injury): If it is the ACL, add it to the list of growing ACL tears/strains. Hopefully it isn’t serious.

I feel most of these injuries are regular, course of the season injuries. I think to dig into the organization looking to place blame is difficult as we have no clue their practices, etc. Seems a little like knee-jerk reactions from people looking to point fingers. Don’t panic. The training and condition staff isn’t going to see heads roll over injuries occurring in the course of the game and almost all of these can be traced to instance where players have come out because of said injury.

I’m a Giants fan first and foremost, so I know how this feels. I know many of us were calling for the medical and S&C staff’s heads a couple weeks ago.

However, I think most of the injuries that have happened to every team are a result of
A) Football. She is a fickle mistress, to say the least.
B) The lockout. No offseason to get bodies shape for the pounding
C) No contact in practices, again bodies don’t get the chance to acclimate to the pounding.

I’ll admit I don’t know much about your team’s injuries, but I know pretty much all of ours were unavoidable (at least 3 incidences of legs getting tangled and ACL’s going SNAP!) or in no way linked to anything S&C or medical personnel could account for.

(I came over here to see if I could find out anything about Justin Tryon, because I saw he’s switched Mannings lol… If it makes you feel better, I could go and list all our injuries for you guys =/ )

I hope I’ve offered some words of consolation…

… some players have unique abilities to avoid injury. In basketball, I think of Michael Jordan, who managed to avoid any serious injury over a long career of leaping, running, diving, contact, etc.. Lots of guys can leap. But rare is the guy who can leap and land for over a decade without serious injury. That takes enormous talent. The same can be said for Freeney, Mathis, Wayne, and Harrison. Each plays a position where injury is a constant threat. Yet, each avoids the big injury. I think it is a combination of great athletical ability – flexibility, balance, strength, endurance – coupled with great technique – playing smart, knowing their limits, playing within themselves. Great players, like these, can execute at a very high level while exerting at just less than full-maximum effort. They always have a reserve. It is this reserve that they call on in those split-second reactions where they get down or jump over or move their knee or otherwise avoid catastrophic injury. Lesser players don’t have this reserve. They lack the same level of physical tools, balance, strength, etc., and have to play at full-max just to stay on the field. So, a player like Wayne can consistently shift his knee just out of the way or adjust his foot to a proper landing position to avoid injury. But a guy like Gonzo gets hurt because he is simply not as talented, not as nimble.

This was essentially a non-contact injury on a simple football move that every offensive tackle has to make on every play. I think that injury is a direct result of fatigue – he simply was not physically ready to play that many snaps at a professional football game level of intensity. When his body got tired, he lacked the core-strength and balance to make a simple football move and, as a result, he lost his balance and buckled his knee. Now, he could lose most of a season of development, right when he is most needed and the opportunity is most available. That is very unfortunate for him and for the organization. But, he should have been physically ready to take those snaps, in spite of the shortened training camp. They have been playing football for two months now.

Keep in mind that he has largely been in a back-up, third string type of situation. I’m not sure how much they really thought about having to play him. It is definitely a result of the lack of conditioning, but it is also a fairly routine injury. Knees are an issue for linemen, plain and simple. I agree, though, MichColtFan.

“Guys like Ray Lewis are the ones usually hitting defenseless offensive players thus minimizing the force of the opposing player’s impact.”

I don’t think any of the Colts linebackers could perform the Ray Lewis pre-game “dance” without causing themselve serious internal injuries.

Manning, the iron man of football, suddenly gets a nagging injury. Tryon is mysteriously released. They keep Donald Brown. They sign a free-agent DT in Tommie Harris who is effective, then cut him, but keep Ernie “for some reason I’ve still not played but I made the team” Sims. They sign Kerry Collins. They keep Curtis Painter.

The above reflect a lot of extremely poor decisions and suspicious timings. We all have different things to point at and explain why this season is going to suck. Is it possible that the “masterminds” are actually setting us up for a bad season so that we can draft Luck?

I hold out hope that there is a reason for the ineptitude. Perhaps I am just an optimist. Or I could just be a stupid Colts homer. I fully admit that possibility.

Take this as insiders information from an annoymous source:

Bill Polian has been doing this to player’s who can return during the season to gain experience for lesser priced players – this happened with Anthony Gonzalez where he could’ve played, and Polian put him on IR early.

Does it surprise you the Colts are 0-4, and the starting middle linebacker, and safety were put on IR? What would be the ramifications of Angerer starting the rest of the season, verse Brackett returning later in the year? What are the draft consequences?

These are salary cap moves that sometimes hurt the player.

Research deeper, there’s more to it than this .

Can’t really blame half the injuries on Strength and Conditioning team

Concussions can’t be prevented – Fragility can’t be avoided

If Polian had done a proper job of getting an OLine that can protect Manning, we wouldn’t probably be in this situation to begin with

normally I don’t see things eye to eye with you (although I always read your posts, appreciate your writing, and am thoroughly entertained), but here I think you hit one out of the park. I do agree with most of the articles. I really think that with the string of injuries sustained over the past three years tells me that something needs to be remedied.

Man, get the F*ck out of here with that. You are NOT a Doctor, you do not have the capabilities to judge something that takes years to master.

Also, all of these injuries are mostly bone(shoulder, neck) or knee and ankle injuries which are prevalent all thru the NFL.

Our D is undersized, Period…that is the main reason for our injury problem

A few weeks back I mentioned Bill Parcells came to NEW England and one of the first things he did was replace the strength and conditioning coaches.Reason,to many unexplained injuries.Period.No other explanation was given.Parcells simply wouldn’t accept that level of injuries.The coaches let go were loved and respected.Parcells didn’t care.He refused to accept the status quo.Guess what,injuries went down ,way down. happenstance ,luck.I don’t know.All I know is that parcells wouldn’t accept what was going on in NE.The question now is whether Chris P. will accept what is going on in Indy