One of the most important pieces of information in ffb is the injury report. Not only will you be embarrassed at the draft if you holler out an IR player with gusto but every week you gotta know not only who won't play but who won't play at full speed. A running back with an injured thumb can still run, but maybe he can't hold on to the ball when he gets clocked. A little analysis along with the official NFL list is good to have.
Coaches, some more than others, are notorious about injury vagueness. This season there is a new reporting policy (along with several other changes) that should make injury classifications more credible and telling. Teams have to report whether a player practiced, was limited in practice or practiced at 100 percent participation. Injury designations are Out (definitely will not play); Doubtful (at least 75 percent chance will not play);Questionable (50-50 chance will not play);and Probable (virtual certainty player will be available for normal duty). Of course, there's still a lot o'wiggle room in there, so ffb owners need to do their homework.
Here's a quick rundown of some free injury information sites. This is a look ONLY at the current injury list portion of a site, not a review of the entire operation. Also, this is hardly a comprehensive list. I mean, GOOD GAWD. Lots of sites out there, peeps. Speak up if you have a good one I've missed.
My fave freebie? Covers.com. My site-by-site comments are on the next page, listed alphabetically, except for links that aren't up to speed, which I've listed at the end.
My first stop was, the official NFL site. There aren't any preseason listings and a lot of sites seem to be relying on the NFL, which means they don't have anything yet.
CBS Sportsline is organized team-by-team with a table format that easy to read. You can get a quick hit analysis or click on the link to bring up the whole table with three lines of info along with the basics of name, position and official NFL status. I was pummeled by a really annoying pop-up ad though ...
Covers.com. Easy-to-read tabbed format organized by team. It lists name, position, a quick status, update date, a cool notes feature that gives you a readout instead of taking you to another window. Best of all it has ATS and O/U stats, which are: "ATS & O/U represent team records for games the player missed as a result of their current injury. Season ATS & Season O/U represents team records for games the player has missed over accumulative injuries." Cool, huh?! A quick little way to assess how important a player is. Verrry nice. I'm bookmarking this one.
ESPN. Nice
enough, game-by-game listings and team-by-team list that can also be sorted by date. Plenty of what you need: Player, position, dates, official NFL status and a little analysis. Some content is a freebie from pay-for-content Rotowire.com.
KFFL, for the first time is offering free and premium content. The basic injury list is free. Players listed team-by-team with brief
comments. The list is frequently updated, but you'll need to read it,
as opposed to seeing it as a chart. Honestly, I had a wee bit of
trouble understanding the navigation structure at first.
ProFantasySports lists update date, player, position, injury, status and projected return.
Rototimes is really basic: player and prognosis.
The Sports Illustrated site: Doesn't really seem to be up yet. Organized by team. It does have some notable injuries listed. For example Kenny Irons is up under the Cincinnati Bengals header, but there ain't nothing about Pro Bowl right tackle Willie Anderson who has a heel problem and LT Levi Jones, who's out. Seems like we might want to know, going into the draft, that both of the starting tackles are hurt. Also, the field at the top of the team-list page takes you to the overall team site and away from the injury lists. [Note: I found another link to an SI site that took me to a page that has an updated date of February 2005. So, like, I dunno whassup with that.]
Sports Network has a basic, table format list of who's hurt, team-by-team. Not much analysis and it's broken up by AFC and NFC, which I find annoying since, as previously revealed, I can't ever remember who is where.
USA Today's site content is provided by Covers.com. Covers site is better-designed and has more info.
Yahoo won't get you shouting. It's a basic team-by-team list of who (includes position) NFL injury status and a body part.
Skip it: The link is dead or they aren't listing preseason injuries or you have to register or pay or it's not even a real site. Remember this is only a comment on the injury report portion.
Askthecommish.com
FFToday.com
FantasySharks.com
FantasyMVP.com
FantasyCommandos.com
FantasyFootballAdvisor.com
FoxSports.com
theRedZone.org
Rotowire.com
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