Matthew Stafford’s dislocated finger may affect his performance in a pivotal matchup

Now that the NFL injury report has eliminated the designation of “probable,” the questionable tag will include players who are anywhere from 50 to 99-percent likely to play. With this new development, you will definitely need to check here every week before locking your lineups to make sure that you don’t get burned by a player whose injury status you miscalculated. I will use a combination of Injury Science and my experience as a Doctor of Physical Therapy to give you a more precise description of whether you can trust these players on your fantasy roster.

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Matthew Stafford (DET) Finger sprain

With much of the season-long fantasy action already completed, and many of the NFL games being meaningless, I will stick to the games that mean something this week. No game will mean more than the Green Bay Packers vs. the Detroit Lions on Sunday night, so this looks like a good place to start. I wrote about Stafford a couple of weeks ago prior to the Lions game vs. the New York Giants. Although Stafford continues to be left off the injury report, I warned that his injury was serious and that he should be avoided. If you didn’t listen to that advice, you were rewarded with a whopping 11.2 point performance against the Giants, followed by a pedestrian 14.5 points against the Dallas Cowboys. Stafford’s middle finger dislocation and the spraining of the ligaments around that finger are making him less effective, in my opinion. Stafford has not been lighting it up this season by any means, but I think the completion percentage over the last few games is the biggest tell that his finger is making a difference.

How Stafford’s finger holds up this week will play a big role on the fantasy landscape, as many DFS players and anyone else who is still invested in fantasy football are likely to be targeting this game. Not only will Stafford’s injury limit his output, but it may turn what most believe will be a shoot out into a slow-paced methodical game. As a rule of thumb, you should give players with soft tissue injuries about three weeks to recover. However, when it comes to injuries that players will continue to play with and injuries that are hard to protect, you will most likely see these injuries linger for a longer time period. For most players, toe injuries are the type of injury I hate to see because I know that if they don’t get time off, it is likely the injury will have repeated setbacks as players use their toes on every play. For a quarterback, the same goes for a finger on the throwing hand.

With Stafford going into his third week of recovery, I still do not believe that his finger is ready to allow him to throw accurately and resume his normal quality of play. I think the only way that Stafford performs well is through quantity of play. Stafford should be looked at as a volume play at best, and those invested should hope to see a shoot out that causes him to throw 50 passes or more. The risk is that the Lions and Stafford admit to themselves that Stafford’s finger is an issue and take the opposite approach and try to slow the game down as to limit Stafford’s exposure. I don’t know which way this will go, but I do know that if you are using Stafford for fantasy purposes, the risk remains very high and the ceiling is lower than his usual. Looking elsewhere for quality quarterback play would be my advice.

Spencer Ware (KC) Rib injury

Ware is listed as questionable, but with the Kansas City Chiefs needing a win to improve their playoff position, I am pretty sure that he will play. Generally, rib injuries can be divided into fractures and non-fractures. If the rib is fractured, you generally don’t want the player out there due to the risk of further impact displacing the fracture. In certain areas the displacement of a rib means that the rib will be contacting underlying soft tissue and organs, and this can be very serious. On the other hand, injuries like rib sprains, contusions, bruises, etc. are generally just about pain tolerance. Like Ware, players with this type of rib injury will feel the pain with breathing and most definitely when they get hit, but it is unlikely that a player will sit out of an important game simply due to pain. There are many remedies for pain in the NFL, and my guess is that Ware will use one of them and be on the field. If the Chiefs can get control of the game early, Ware may be one of the first starters to get the rest of the day off, so there is some risk to playing Ware.

Jay Ajayi (MIA) AC Sprain

It is believed that the injury that caused Ajayi to almost spoil his 200-yard game last week is an AC sprain to his left shoulder. This may strike fear for many who have watched Jordan Reed’s season crumble as the result of an AC sprain, but things are likely to be different for Ajayi. Reed suffered a Grade 3 sprain which is the worst type of sprain. Anytime you hear that a tissue injury is a Grade 3, you should think complete tear and in many cases this means a long absence from play and/or surgery. In Ajayi’s case, there is no diagnosis out there that I have found, but because he is being reported to be playing in Week 17, I believe this can only be a Grade 1 injury. Anything greater would surely have made the Miami Dolphins hold him out this week to get ready for a playoff run. In many cases, a Grade 1 injury simply means that there is a contusion, some swelling, and some pain around the joint in question. This is usually managed well with conservative modalities that are designed to control these types of symptoms. The key point here is that a Grade 1 injury means that there is no instability to the joint and this fact protects the player from further injury. A joint that is stable is at no further risk for injury than it was prior to the trauma that caused the injury, but as we progress to a grade two injury, we have the introduction of instability to the joint which can lead to further injury. Those invested in Ajayi this week or going forward through the playoffs should not have much to worry about with this injury and can play him with confidence.

Jordan Reed (WAS) AC sprain

Reed is nearing the five-week mark since he originally injured his shoulder, and if that five-week period had consisted of rest and rehabilitation, this may have been a favorable write-up for Reed. Unfortunately, those five weeks include the prime time debacle during which the Carolina Panthers had target practice on Reed’s shoulder and Reed decided to go football player turned boxer. Keep in mind that this is an injury that in many cases would need surgery, but the Washington Redskins seem to have avoided surgery for now to keep their playoff hopes alive. The only thing I can definitively say is that Reed will not be 100% this week. If I push a little further and simply give you my opinion, I don’t believe that Reed should be anywhere near a football field in Week 17. I guess Reed is talented enough to be a decoy, but I think we will see more target practice from the New York Giants defense. As a tight end, it will be very difficult for Reed to protect himself from getting that shoulder hit on nearly every play unless he simply splits out and doesn’t even attempt to block. If that is the plan, I don’t see why he is even out there. My guess is this will end badly, and while some will see this as the ultimate contrarian play, I believe Reed is a strong candidate to yield less than 10 fantasy points this week. The only good news is that once the offseason hits, Reed has a good chance of putting this particular injury behind him, but even with that said Reed has shown that his repertoire of ways to get injured is vast.

Martellus Bennett (NE) Ankle sprain

Bennett is listed as questionable and has had an ankle injury for more than half the season without missing a game. Instead of talking about his ankle sprain, which by now anyone who reads this post every week should know what I have to say about ankle sprains, I want to look at the big picture as some of you start to plan for your fantasy draft next year. Bennett is listed as being 6′ 6″, weighing 270 lbs, and running a 4.68-second 40-yard dash. I haven’t talked much lately about Freaky Talented athletes, but Bennett is definitely high on that list. I expect Bennett to take the field this week and play sub-par with touchdown upside like he has played most of the year. Beyond this short-term outlook when you hit the draft next year look at these types of measurements and know that a player with this type of build matched with this type of speed is not built to play at a high level all season. If you’re lucky you get a player like Bennett who plays through injury and doesn’t give you too many zeros, but if you’re unlucky you get the Freaky Talented king – Julio Jones – and never know when to start him or when to hit the waiver wire. Players like Bennett and Jones must be complemented with supremely skilled players that may not have the same size and speed, but who can still get the job done every week. Players who are this big and this fast don’t have a chance with being able to control their mass and poor control over your body mass leads to injury. If you really want to excel at fantasy football, get to know the ideal weight and speed for each position and know that a player like C. J. Anderson is overweight for his position and likely to get injured; know that wide receivers like Demaryius Thomas and Brandon Marshall are some of the heaviest receivers in the game and will suffer overuse injuries as their careers progress; and that the tight end position is generally the most Freaky Talented position in the game of football and building your team around a tight end like Rob Gronkowski is a recipe for disaster. I am not claiming to be able to predict every injury in an unpredictable sport such as football, but I am telling you that Injury Science is real and that much of what has happened this year was very predictable.

Those invested in Bennett should know that he is likely no healthier than 75% at this point in the season, but the adrenaline of being on a team that has a real chance to win a Super Bowl may push him to some decent performances. He will be a high-risk play for the rest of the New England Patriots’ season, but with his undeniable Freaky Talent (even at 75%) he could also yield a high reward.

If I did not cover a player that you are interested in, contact me @DrPettyIRD before the game.

Good Luck!