Matt Hasselbeck's Clear and Progressive Injured-related Decline

by John Morgan on Sep 21, 2009 12:21 PM PDT

Matt Hasselbeck did not appear on the NFL injury report in 2005. He has appeared at least once every other season he has been a starting quarterback. Hasselbeck has endured injuries to his knee, shoulders, thigh, back, hand, neck, elbow, groin and hip. He has picked himself up and put together a fine NFL career. This is not a discussion about Hasselbeck's toughness, pain tolerance or ability to withstand injury. My intention is only to challenge my assumption that Hasselbeck has played worse when he played injured.

The NFL is notoriously tight-lipped about the status of its players. Coaches and players are protective about the information and the NFL accepts a certain amount of gamesmanship with the injury report. The reasoning is obvious. An NFL player is not one thing. He is a range of things depending on the condition of his body. That is most obvious with running backs. Injuries can cut down a back from the height of his career to retirement in no time. It affects all players, though. Or so is common knowledge and my understanding of the game, but do we see that pattern in Hasselbeck? Has he played significantly worse when injured?

Hasselbeck has appeared on the injury report 38 times. For his career he has averaged 5.8 adjusted net yards per attempt. He has played 13 times after appearing on the injury report. He averaged 4.3 adjusted yards per attempt in those games. His moving average represents a steep decline from his youth to his present. His good injured games have been less good and his bad injured games worse.

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To clarify

(I’m a bit slow)

Each time he’s injured, his ANYA further declines upon his return?

The demise of the Broncos in '09 is our future. Pray hard.

by Nick Andron on Sep 21, 2009 12:33 PM PDT reply actions

Or was that number of games missed PER SEASON due to injury

and the corresponding ANYA after his return THAT season?

The demise of the Broncos in '09 is our future. Pray hard.

by Nick Andron on Sep 21, 2009 12:33 PM PDT up reply actions

The graph is his moving average for adjusted net yards an attempt

when he plays after being listed on the NFL injury report.

by John Morgan on Sep 21, 2009 12:35 PM PDT up reply actions

Are those just the 13 games

when he played after appearing on the injury report?

by jacobstevens on Sep 21, 2009 12:40 PM PDT up reply actions

Ouch.

Seems like even if Matt can play this week it might not be a good thing. I have a feeling we’ll see Seneca on Sunday.

by MFAN on Sep 21, 2009 12:36 PM PDT reply actions

....ugh

NEEDS MORE FREEDOM!

by Scruffy Lefty on Sep 21, 2009 1:09 PM PDT up reply actions

I'n hoping Jeff Garcia is released by Philly.

by MFAN on Sep 21, 2009 1:11 PM PDT up reply actions

Brian Brohm~!!!!!!

Early prospect watch: RB C.J. Spiller, QB Jevan Snead, OT Ciron Black, DT Gerald McCoy, S Eric Berry, DT Ndamukong Suh, CB Ras-I Dowling 6'2, 200, RB Jonathan Dwyer

by Misfit74 on Sep 21, 2009 3:42 PM PDT up reply actions

Why, what is Garcia going to do?

He doesn’t know the offense, he would just sit around while Seneca played.

It's Great to be a Florida Gator!

09/05
Terminated contracts
S Brian Russell

by Wayward Llama on Sep 21, 2009 6:35 PM PDT up reply actions

I'd take Seneca right now over Garcia.

He knows the offense and is better than alot of cats give him credit for. I’ll take Garcia’s wife though. DAMN!

by Hawkmain on Sep 21, 2009 8:51 PM PDT up reply actions

Garcia knows the WCO offense, he played with Knapp in San Fran and he's better than Seneca.

by MFAN on Sep 22, 2009 12:46 AM PDT up reply actions

Garcis would take a dive for the end zone on 2nd down

on the 4 yard line when there’s nobody open on a rollout to the right.

by jacobstevens on Sep 22, 2009 9:47 AM PDT up reply actions

In one measure of the decline

it may be worse than stated, actually. 5.8 career would include the 4.3 playing after being listed for that week as injured, right? So, a modest uptick in career ANY/A, with those games not being included, then compared to those games, would surely display a modestly greater disparity.

by jacobstevens on Sep 21, 2009 12:43 PM PDT reply actions

So each time he comes back after being on the injury report

He does more poorly than the last time he played after being on the injury report.

Is that correct?

The demise of the Broncos in '09 is our future. Pray hard.

by Nick Andron on Sep 21, 2009 12:56 PM PDT reply actions

No, not exactly

It’s an average.

by John Morgan on Sep 21, 2009 12:58 PM PDT up reply actions

I'm still uncertain about what I'm supposed to take from this

There are so many variables that complicate the situation (receiver quality/health, line quality/health, running game) over so long of a time that I feel like we’re losing context.

How many games from last year are included in this report, when we weren’t playing many starting WR or OL and Matt was still in the middle of fighting the back thing? How many of the injury reports came from 2006, when the running game faltered mightily in bursts with Shaun in and out of the lineup? How many in 2007, when the running game disappeared but the passing game kept on trucking?

Why do you use a moving average? What sorts of things get smoothed out of the
picture? What sort of trends get introduced by outliers?

I feel like we’re missing a lot of context that may provide a more complete picture.

by ninjasocks on Sep 21, 2009 12:58 PM PDT reply actions

Every quarterback in football endures the above.

by John Morgan on Sep 21, 2009 1:01 PM PDT up reply actions

That doesn't really answer my questions

But Football Outsiders disagrees with you on the 2008 injury situation.

by ninjasocks on Sep 21, 2009 1:07 PM PDT up reply actions

Three games appear from 2008, three from 2007 and two from 2006.

Every quarterback endures certain team weaknesses. Hasselbeck was part of and part of the cause of a particularly bad run of injuries in 2008. There are no outliers.

Seahawks fans know the context of these games. I am not going to pour over subjective criteria and guess how Hasselbeck should have played. Each individual reader can interpret this as they like.

by John Morgan on Sep 21, 2009 1:22 PM PDT up reply actions

Objective context-free stats are fine in baseball

They often do a lousy job in describing a game as complicated as football. Strength of opponents and strength of supporting players play a significant role in the performance of a player. Raw stats, in the absence of context, aren’t very useful. Otherwise, Graham Harrell and Tim Tebow would be clear-cut first-round picks.

The only evidence for the “Clear and Progressive Injury-related Decline” is this one little chart that is provided without context. If you’re confident in the data supporting your argument, I don’t see why wouldn’t just copy and paste the raw numbers for us to read.

by ninjasocks on Sep 21, 2009 1:57 PM PDT up reply actions

The chart is small, you are correct.

I wrote the numbers in my notebook and then put the results in excel. The information can by found by anyone with access to Google. Hasselbeck’s game log is here. A list of his injuries is here.

The idea that I am creating an argument without context is wrong. All I do is provide context. I have notebooks full of information regarding formations, length of drops, routes run, pressure and separation by the receivers. If you are looking for even greater context, I would suggest reading this.

by John Morgan on Sep 21, 2009 2:17 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

Agreed, but...

honestly, in the hidden context that is not displayed on that chart, is there the key to a fountain of youth for Hasselbeck? There really isn’t. This isn’t damning. But I think we all know, we’re in the midst of that injury-related decline phase. So it goes. There is still yet a very good and reasonable measure of hope for this season and post-season. We’re closing in on the end of Hasselbeck’s career, but not close to the end of our chances for this season.

by jacobstevens on Sep 21, 2009 1:03 PM PDT up reply actions

I had this as a 9-7 season

I’m adjusting downward to 6-8 wins with the hope of developing some key youngsters (e.g., Bryant, Curry, Unger) while hoping the core stays reasonably healthy. Certainly, we can outplay that. Seattle isn’t untalented. Rather, the injury profile for this team was never good.

That goes beyond yesterday’s loss. We were going to need some luck—and not just regression, but real luck—with injuries to play our way into 10 or 11 wins this year. Hill and Tatupu aren’t guys you’d expect to miss time due to injury based on their history, and yet here we are. It doesn’t look like we’re going to get the sort of luck we need. This division could suck enough that we could hang around, but I’m not going to bank on it.

To be clear, I’m going to the Chi game this weekend and plan to yell myself hoarse. But after sitting through one miserable Mets season I have a knew appreciation for understanding your team’s injury profile.

Go, whoever plays Denver!!!!

"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin

by dcrockett17 on Sep 21, 2009 1:20 PM PDT reply actions

Mebane is the key to the line

Without him, Cole gets double teamed and our interior line is rendered nearly useless.

Mebane is so key to our run D, it’s scary.

The demise of the Broncos in '09 is our future. Pray hard.

by Nick Andron on Sep 21, 2009 1:29 PM PDT up reply actions

It's also dumb, we should be able to adjust better than that.

Haynesworth leaves the Titans, and their run D is still dominant. I know it’s not all Haynesworth that made their run D well (and I know they got blown out in the air yesterday), but us losing Mebane shouldn’t be as big of a loss as Mebane (Also aware of Tatupu and Hill).

by LantermanC on Sep 21, 2009 1:36 PM PDT up reply actions

Those two big runs count

so I won’t say, “throw them out, and X” but the other runs of Gore’s combined for a 3.4 YPC.

The 9ers have a really good center, and Chilo Rachal is turning into a good guard. And Gore is a very good runner, especially once he breaks through the first level. I daresay on the second part, he’s second to none, currently. It’s embarrassing. But it isn’t reflective of how sorely we missed Mebane on the whole.

I’d say it’s the one big concern, schematically, is being vulnerable to big runs, once they break through. Our starters might have contained that. But those starters have been on the field for big gainers before, even while on the whole we end up looking like an above average run defense.

by jacobstevens on Sep 21, 2009 1:59 PM PDT up reply actions

I'm a firm believer that Haynesworth was a product of the people around him

Hence why the Titans D-line is still good, and the Redskins allowed SJax to run for over 100 yards yesterday.

For Mebane, I’m starting to believe it’s the exact opposite. Without him, our line falls apart. The 49ers game was a very early indicator of that. I’m very much hoping 1. he stays healthy, and 2. the coaching staff is able to better adjust; that’s a lot of pressure on one young man (plus it’s not a sustainable strategy).

The demise of the Broncos in '09 is our future. Pray hard.

by Nick Andron on Sep 21, 2009 2:06 PM PDT up reply actions

Mebane as Haynesworth*

by LantermanC on Sep 21, 2009 2:22 PM PDT up reply actions

I think Mebane's absence could have been better mitigated

but we did see a lot of Bryant. And, just to touch on the whole results-based analysis from the other discussion, I can’t say I would have thought before this game, that it would be a good idea to use Redding more on the interior because we could count on Jackson at end.

Did Michael Bennett get snaps? The Cole/Terrill combo was the bad part. Aside from those two runs, considering the loss of Mebane, Tats & Hill, it was OK. Mora blamed it on gap assignment issues, but I thought they did fine there, just got flat-out beat at the point. To a man. Hawthorne could possibly have been in better position, but I think that was moot because I dunno if he would have been able to shed his block or affect Gore’s runs.

The one big gaff, I think on the second one, I noticed, was Babineaux took his cut-off angle way premature, and Gore easily redirected. That turned the 20-yarder into the 70 plus TD. But Gore has a way of doing that.

by jacobstevens on Sep 21, 2009 1:52 PM PDT up reply actions

2008 remix?

injuries already plaguing this team. going to be a long season if boys are already going down.

do i dare go as far to say 2008 remix? it is shaping up to be, injury wise…

by GriffinNW on Sep 21, 2009 3:37 PM PDT reply actions

I feel like you already did in the subject :)

I saw a Kelly Jennings INT.......really....

by The Manchild on Sep 21, 2009 4:08 PM PDT up reply actions

I wanted Sanchez

I felt like I couldn’t be disappointed by the pick. Either QB, either tackle, Crabtree, Curry, I would be happy with any of them. Leaned toward the skill position players for offense, because offense has been a little neglected in the first day of the draft, but would be fine with any of them. When the moment came, I found myself hoping to hear Sanchez.

But no second guessing. I am happy with Curry. We committed to Hasselbeck. We’ll get another QB next year and it’s the three we have now to get us through this year.

by jacobstevens on Sep 22, 2009 9:51 AM PDT up reply actions