Should the Cleveland Browns consider drafting injured players?

Depending on the injury, a player who is not at 100% can be a calculated risk worth taking even in Round 1. Are the Cleveland Browns ready for such a gamble?

Should the Cleveland Browns consider drafting damaged goods with high draft picks?

What a horrible idea, you say? For example, why would anyone consider drafting a running back who suffered a serious knee injury in college, one involving multiple ligaments and cartilage?

Too bad, otherwise that poor dude might have been another Nick Chubb. Come to think of it, that dude actually was Nick Chubb, and the Browns were wise to draft him in the second round in 2018.

Prior to the 2019 draft, the Browns were scheduled to draft 17th overall and this writer was foolish enough to suggest that the Browns might consider drafting a defensive end Jeffery Simmons, who tore his ACL while training in February 2019.

Boy, did the fans let me have it for that foolish recommendation.

However, let the record show that Simmons was drafted at 19th overall by the Tennessee Titans. While Browns fans shed buckets of tears for Sheldon Richardson,  Jeffery Simmons was actually given a clearly superior grade from Pro Football Focus, and he is still on his rookie contract whereas Richardson was sent packing as a cap casualty.

At this point in their respective careers, there is zero doubt that Simmons is the superior performer, and the young man’s four-year deal cost less than Richardson’s cap number would have been for 2021 alone. Yes, it was a bit of a calculated risk, because ACL injuries are not 100% recovery rate, but in this case, it seemed to be not as severe as some other variants of the injury.

Perhaps drafting Jeffery Simmons in the first round was not such as stupid idea after all? Well, if you feel otherwise, you can explain why it was still a terrible idea in the comments section below.

The team should not blindly draft injured players hoping for 100% recovery. It matters what kind of injury it is, and very extensive due diligence is required if a multimillion-dollar investment is qualified.  Needless to say, the name of this humble publication is Dawg Pound Daily, not the New England Journal of Medicine, and we are not medical specialists and we certainly have no inside medical information about the particular athlete.

However, we can read the sports medicine literature. For example, check out the Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine from April 4 2017 for the lowdown on recovery rates from ACL tears. Of course, not all ACL injuries are the same. The draft team needs to be consulting with their medical staff to determine which athletes are likely to make it back and what the risk factors are.

The data shows that an ACL injury without additional complications, once the kiss of death to an NFL career, may not be an acceptable risk factor in today’s NFL, especially given that the rate of success in drafting NFL prospects is less than 100%.

If you want to calculate a number, you could estimate the failure rate of ACL surgeries, and subtract that amount of draft capital from his original draft position to arrive at his new modified draft stock.

For example, if before the pick Simmons was the 12th most valuable player in the draft (worth about 1,200 draft points on the standard scale) and you thought the failure rate was 20%, you would estimate his new value would be 80 percent of his original value or 960 draft points which would place him about 17th overall.

You might also take into account the number of games that might be missed and apply a factor for that, based on a four or five-year contract, depending on whether or not he is a first-round draft pick.

If you don’t like the math, just remember that an ACL should cost a player a few places in the draft, but should usually not disqualify a highly talented player altogether. You can use the same rule for your fantasy football team. Think Adrian Peterson.

Having a player begin the year on the Physically Unable to Play (PUP) list isn’t a bad thing. That is almost like having an extra roster spot at the beginning of the year when roster spots are in short supply. Reinforcements are always needed as the season progresses, so if your player makes it back during the season, that can actually work out well.

The case might be different for an Achilles Tendon tear, however, which has a lower rate of recovery and tends to shorten the careers of athletes that do make it back to the playing field.

Concussions are another injury that can be difficult to project. All in all, you would rather have a player without a significant concussion history, even if there are no signs of a problem. These concerns need to be estimated statistically to apply quantitative risk factors to the scouting assessment in the absence of injury and associated risk.

Translation: The draft room should ding an injured rookie something for being injured, but it might be only a minor penalty depending on the injury.

Drafting a rookie is a four-year commitment, so if you think you are going to have a healthy player for 50 games plus playoffs, that should be acceptable. He will be learning the playbook while rehabbing, so it is not like he is wasting time.

If you are so concerned about having the player for the month of September and October, you should be signing veteran free agents to one-year contracts and not using the draft to satisfy that one-year itch.