The Denver Broncos have had poor “luck” with injuries ever since Loren Landow was hired. What needs to be done?
Luke Richesson, the former strength and conditioning coach for the Denver Bronco, was hired by the Houston Texans in 2018. The Denver Broncos hired Loren Landow to take his place. The Broncos have had bad “luck” with injuries ever then.
I have no idea how big of an impact the strength and conditioning coach has on whether or not an NFL player sustains a significant injury because I am neither a personal trainer nor do I portray one on television.
However, Football Outsiders’ AGL, or adjusted games lost, measure has been used for over 20 years to track how injured different teams are.
Football Outsiders has been gathering information from the NFL’s weekly injury reports and converting it into adjusted games lost for more than 20 years. Adjusted game losses go beyond simple injury totals. Injuries to projected starters and situational players are given greater weight than injuries to expected backups, and it takes into account both absent players and those playing at less than 100%.
Although I was aware of the AGL measure, I had never given it much thought. In horse races, Sadaraine questioned whether the Broncos had sustained more injuries than the rest of the league during the previous three or four seasons. That’s a resounding yes, of course. Let’s review the statistics.
Healthy is green. Red is undesirable. Yellow is standard. AGL has significantly increased for the Broncos when Richesson was replaced by Landow.
Given how many starters the Broncos have been without for extended periods of time this year, I would anticipate that their 2022 AGL would finish among the top in the league, if not the highest. We’ll see if they surpass the Ravens’ record-breaking 191.2 value from previous season, which I highly doubt they will do. Unsettling is the trend shown in the graph above.
Landow must be replaced if that tendency is a direct outcome of his methods.
The Broncos rank 28th worst with a 97.3 average over the previous four complete seasons. Only
If you work a job where your performance is very visible (such as coaching a professional sports team), you shouldn’t be shocked if people start calling for your dismissal if your performance is below league average.
Naturally, I can’t claim that Landow’s performance on the job is directly contributing to the Broncos suffering more injuries than the rest of the league. The correlation between Landow’s hiring and when the Broncos’ injury “luck” significantly worsened is difficult to ignore. It’s possible that John Elway made a deal with the devil to win Super Bowl 50, and this is the result. Landow must be sacked if the idea that the strength and conditioning coach can help prevent serious injuries is to be believed.
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