The National Football League (NFL) is in its third week of the season and there has already been a plethora of injuries.

Some notable names who have recently suffered season-ending injuries include Saquon Barkley, Marlon Mack, Bruce Irvin and Nick Bosa.

Due to COVID-19, the NFL made the decision to cancel the preseason and go straight from training camp to Week 1 of the regular season.

Some argued that this decision would cause major injury issues for NFL players and teams. So far this season, one thing has been apparent: the NFL’s injury bug has been spreading like a wildfire across the league. 

But would the preseason have made a difference?

The NFL preseason was created for coaches and management to prepare game plans for the actual season and to play young players who are trying to fight for roster spots.

The often overlooked benefit of the preseason is that it gives players about a month to get their bodies ready for full speed tackle football against other NFL teams.

The argument against this, however, is that players would have gotten hurt regardless, since most of these injuries were contact injuries.

Additionally, no star quarterbacks have been injured for the season. Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a high-ankle sprain, but should be back within a few weeks, and Tyrod Taylor suffered a freak injury when his lung was accidentally punctured in an error by the medical staff of the Los Angeles Chargers. 

A contact injury occurs when a player gets hurt due to a way they were in contact with another player. A non-contact injury occurs when a player gets injured while he is not being touched by anyone else. This argument is important because a non-contact injury could be directly related to a player’s body not being ready for full action football.

When looking at both points, it is also important to remember that players’ bodies are still physically in the third week of the preseason. And when looking back at previous seasons, there have never been this many injuries at that point in the preseason. 

The cause of this controversy is impossible to figure out, but it will be very telling once we get to a halfway point of the season and see how the list of injuries has changed up until this point. 

The ideal end result for the league would be to reduce the number of star players on the injury reserve. In order for the NFL to protect their decision, they need the play on the field to be as great as it can be so that it distracts people from the off-the-field problems. 

But for now, we have to sit back and wait to see if the damage starts to dwindle down or continues during the NFL season.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo Sports