Chicago Bears nearly lead league in games lost to injury again

The Chicago Bears have had a lot of health issues the last couple of years and they once again plagued the team throughout 2017.

Football Outsiders has a great Adjusted Games Lost metric where they really break down and dissect not only the number of games lost to players but it factors in things like starters and how often players that are listed as questionable played.

In 2016 the Bears had the most ever games lost to injury with 158.8, which blew the previous record out of the water. Well the team improved a little bit in 2017, they still finished second-to-last to Washington.

The Bears lost 118.1 games to injuries for starters and key role players (think nickelbacks and No. 3 receivers) including Zach Miller, Kevin White and Cameron Meredith. Meredith and White accounted for 31 games alone. There were also losses from Leonard Floyd and Willie Young on defense.

Football Outsiders noted that the Bears’ games did not count Jerrell Freeman because of his 10 game suspension, but he was already on IR at that point and would’ve counted had he not been suspended. If his games had counted, the Bears would have led the league in AGL for the second straight year.

It’s been an absolutely brutal three year run for the Bears and no surprise, John Fox and the training staff were all swept out following the season. FO notes that the team with the highest AGL in recent years has not rebounded and has actually finished 31st the next season, as Chicago did. They also note that coaches of teams among the leaders in AGL are candidates to be fired, as Fox, Chuck Pagano and Ben McAdoo were.

Also noteworthy, for the second straight year, the Bears finished closest to the average rate for questionable players playing in games. The league average was 33 percent of questionable players being active and playing and the Bears played 35 percent of their questionable players.

Make sure to give the whole article a read as it is filled with interesting nuggets and stats that might be good to file away for fantasy football or gambling.

Will the Bears’ injury luck turn around with a new staff and new trainers this year?