Quarterbacks were dropping at a staggering rate. Randall Cunningham of the Philadelphia Eagles injured his knee the first week and was lost for the season. His replacement, Jim McMahon, reinjured his surgically damaged knee and was replaced by Jeff Kemp, who was carried off on a stretcher and then replaced by-guess who?-a gimpy-kneed McMahon.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Bubby Brister injured his knee and did not return for eight weeks. Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys tore the collateral ligament in his right knee and missed the last four regular-season games. Rodney Peete of the Detroit Lions missed the entire season with a torn Achilles` tendon, one of 13 players with a similar injury.
And they were the lucky ones.
Lions guard Mike Utley was paralyzed from the chest down after making a block in a game against the Los Angeles Rams. Steelers guard Brian Blankenship was not given medical clearance to resume playing after he damaged the area between the second and third vertebrae in a game against the New England Patriots. Cleveland Browns wide receiver Danny Peebles retired after he experienced numbness in his extremities following a head-on collision with Oilers safety Bubba McDowell.
These were among the most serious of 2,058 injuries reported by 816 players during the 1991 National Football League season, according to a statistical survey compiled by The Pittsburgh Press.
The survey found:
– Linebackers, not running backs, were the most injured during the regular season, with a total of 284 injuries for 117 players.
– Running backs had more ankle, knee and hamstring injuries than other offensive players.
– Quarterbacks had knee and shoulder injuries three times as much as any other injury and were out an average of three weeks, the most of any offensive or defensive position.
– Defensive players received slightly more ankle and shoulder injuries than offensive players.
– The Steelers played more games on artificial surface (14) than any NFL team, but the Denver Broncos, who play their home games on grass, had the most injured players (38).
– The team with the league`s best record, the Washington Redskins, had the second fewest injured players (19).
– The Los Angeles Raiders had the fewest injured players (16) as well as the fewest number of injuries (38). Guard Max Montoya`s was on the list 11 of those 38 times, with a nagging groin injury.
The survey includes only those players listed on the weekly injury report submitted by NFL teams and is not intended to be a medical analysis. However, the league does not have a uniform policy for reporting injuries and some teams do not always list injured players on the report. Players who are considered out for the season do not appear on the injury report.
For example, Steelers linebacker Bryan Hinkle bruised his ribs in the Nov. 3 game against the Broncos but was not listed on the injury report for the Nov. 10 game in Cincinnati. Hinkle did not play against the Bengals, but the Steelers said they did not list him on the injury report because they thought he would be able to play.
Greg Aiello, the league`s director of information, said it is up to the discretion of each team to list its injured players.
”It`s a personnel report; it`s certainly not a medical report,” Aiello said. ”The clubs are asked to report on the playing status of players. They are asked to identify the potential problem in a very vague way, and that`s it.”
The survey showed that 62 percent of the league`s 1,316 players were injured during the 1991 season and the most frequent resident of a team`s injury report was Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Albert Lewis, who appeared 14 times with the same injury (knee).
Not surprisingly, the knee was the most prevalent injury among offensive and defensive players, accounting for 24.4 percent of the total number of injuries.
However, what was surprising was linebackers reported 79 knee injuries, or 20 more than running backs, who are normally considered to have the most hazardous job in professional sports. Of course, each team normally uses three to four linebackers in a given game compared to two, and sometimes only one running back.
But linebackers might be supplanting running backs in terms of job insecurity. Of the 24 categories listed for injuries, linebackers were the leaders in nine of them, or 33 percent-knee, ankle, thigh, neck, ribs (tie), calf, flu, finger, quad. Running backs were next with five-hamstring, foot, ribs (tie), hip and head.
Curiously, running backs sustained more than twice the number of hamstring injuries of wide receivers (45-19), who probably do more start-and- stop sprinting.
According to the survey, quarterbacks have a high incidence of knee (27)
and shoulder (27) injuries with a trace of ankle and elbow problems.
But the position with the most shoulder injuries was safety (28), which also was the leader in abdomen injuries, with eight of the 18 reported.
More injuries occurred on an artificial surface than grass, but the disparity was not that great because 14 teams now play on home grass fields. In the last few years, teams such as the Bears and New England have ripped up their AstroTurf and replaced it with grass.
Since it was introduced in the mid-1960s, artificial surface has been the bane of pro football players. It brought about injuries never heard of before, particularly something as seemingly harmless as turf toe. But it was crippling enough that it ended the career of Steelers middle linebacker Jack Lambert.
Bob Kohrs, another former Steelers linebacker, had his season ended in 1983 when he was running downfield on a punt, tripped over a seam and tore up his knee. Former Washington Redskins linebacker Rich Milot once fractured his elbow merely by falling on AstroTurf. And Steelers tight end Eric Green fractured his ankle and missed the final five games when he landed awkwardly after catching a pass in practice.
Perhaps the most publicized injury on artificial surface involved Kent Waldrep, a former Texas Christian player who flipped and landed on his head in a 1974 game at Alabama and was paralyzed from the neck down. Waldrep sued the turf`s manufacturer, and the case was settled out of court 11 years later.
Teams that had home fields with artificial surfaces had a total of 1,056 reported injuries to 950 who played their home games on natural grass.
New Orleans, which plays in the Superdome, had the most injuries in the NFL this season (115), 13 more than the next closest team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who play at Arrowhead Stadium. Each has an artificial surface.
Of the 11 teams with the fewest number of injuries, only four-the Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks-play on home artificial surfaces.
Of the season-ending injuries in 1991, the majority were incurred on artificial surfaces, including Cunningham, Peete, Utley and Peebles. Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Shawn Patterson injured his knee in a home game on grass against the Minnesota Vikings. Steve Wisniewski, the Pro Bowl guard for the Raiders, injured his knee on grass in Week 15 of the regular season.
