DaveRoberts'Shoes said:
Honestly, aside from coaching and QB, the most important thing in the league is probably injuries. And it's for the most part completely random and uncontrollable. It's the nature of the sport, but as a fan it's incredibly frustrating.
Oh, well.
How true is that, though? Do injuries really force good teams to take big dives in the rankings?
Quickly comparing a shitty metric, let's look at the ESPN power ranking top 10 because it hopefully captures the perception of team strength based on current injury composition better than historically facing advanced metrics.
Most teams are +/- 5 spots or so from where they started. For the ones that aren't, only a couple have had significant injuries play a part in that. Aaron Rodgers is the obvious big one. Julio Jones hurt the Falcons, but they were sucking before that. The Texans lost Foster but were way off the rails before that happened. The other big slides have just been due to teams sucking - Redskins, Ravens, Vikings, and Giants have all just been disappointing but haven't necessarily had significant injuries causing that (or at least not more significant than other teams). The Patriots are actually 2 spots UP from their preseason ranking spot, despite losing their best offensive skill player, one of their best OL and maybe their best two defenders (although I'd make a case for McCourty these days), Kelly, Talib for a while, etc. we all know the story. They've had maybe the most disastrous set of injuries outside losing a QB like the Packers, but they're still right up there. All the teams at the top have lost people for the most part.
The only other story might be in the teams making big leaps. The Saints, Panthers, Eagles, and Chiefs have had pretty good injury luck. The Eagles actually probably benefited from Vick getting hurt. Maybe these teams don't make the leap in the rankings if some of the other teams around them stay healthier. Tough to say.
But overall, it's interesting just how static the landscape has remained. A few really shitty teams, a few surprises, but despite the huge rash of injuries league-wide, not a lot of teams are nosediving because of it.