The Injury Discount: Fools Gold or Hidden Gems?

In this article, we are going to look at how players perform the season after a major injury. The injuries in this study include ACLs, Achilles, Ankle Fractures, and Lisfranc injuries.  For this study, we reviewed positional ADP vs. positional PPG finish to see if players returned value the year after a major injury. Furthermore, for a player to qualify for the study they had to have an ADP on Fantasy Football Calculator the year after a major injury occurred. The list of players that we compiled for this study was collected from fantasyinjuryteam.com.

Historical Data

The chart above shows that 25 of the 35 players in the sample saw a negative outcome regarding their positional ADP vs. positional PPG finish. That means 71% of players end up not returning value vs. their positional ADP the year after a major injury. To dive deeper, 17 of the 35 (49%) failed to hit their ADP by 10 spots. That 49% rate is 20% higher than players who met or exceeded their positional ADP (29%) the year after one of these injuries.  

When reviewing by position, RBs seemed to be the most impacted as 89% did not return value the year after these injuries. This is 17% higher than the next highest group (QBs). The next category that stood out was positional ADP. Players drafted inside the top 12 at their position failed to meet their ADP 92% of the time. This drops to 76% for players drafted inside the top 18 at their position and 73% for players drafted inside the top 24. The final key piece was the type of injury. Lisfranc topped the list at 86% of players failing to meet their positional ADP the year after that injury.

2022 Fantasy Football Relevant Players Impacted by Injury

The Case For Players Who Can Buck The Trend

Player: Cam Akers

Injury: Achilles

Time of Injury: Preseason

The timing of Cam Akers’ Injury and his late-season return in 2021 makes it likely for him to buck the trend.  Pro Football Doc on sicscore.com says he has a great chance to return to form and has him at nearly 90% heading into 2022. The Rams gave Akers over 15 carries a game in their playoff run so it’s hard to fade a workhorse back in a high-powered offense. We should watch his positional ADP as he is currently sitting at RB16. If he starts creeping into the top 12, we might need to start fading him at that cost.

Player: Travis Etienne

Injury: Lisfranc

Time of Injury: Preseason

Travis Etienne is another RB that should benefit from the timing of his injury. It helps that fellow RB James Robinson is coming off an Achilles injury that occurred nearly 5 months after Etienne. Even though this injury isn’t ideal for an RB like Etienne, Le’Veon Bell was able to top the RB charts in 2014 after his injury in the preseason of 2013.  Doug Pederson’s propensity to divvy up RB touches might cap Etienne’s ceiling, but his passing game chops should make him a solid RB2.

To see where the latest ADP is for Travis Etienne and Cam Akers check out the Razzball ADP Tool!

Conclusion

There doesn’t seem to be much upside in drafting players the year after these major injuries. Outside of Le’Veon Bell in 2013 and Cooper Kupp in 2018, none of the other players featured in the study beat their ADP and were a big-time fantasy football contributor that season. Now targeting these players mid-season could be a solid strategy as fantasy owners get impatient with a slower start. However, when it comes to attacking these players in drafts, it might be best to pivot in 2022.

Sources: Razzball, Player Profiler, RotoHeat, Fantasy Pros, Pro Football Reference, Pro Football Focus, Spotrac, Overthecap, Ourlads, Bestball 10s, Underdog Fantasy, Sleeper, Yahoo, ESPN and NFC