This Simmons shit... it has to stop.
Let's talk about the data set I shared in March regarding Patellar injuries in the NFL, since not many care to read. It's here:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article...rmance%20level
- 31/56 (55%) players returned to the NFL from a patellar injury (RTP).
- Of those, 13/50 (26%) returned to play as many games post-injury as they had pre-injury (RTP Games).
- Only 8/50 (16%) returned to start as many games post-injury as they had pre-injury (RTP Starts).
- The 6 (11%) in the remainder, despite returning to the NFL, never saw another snap.
- Of the 50 that saw snaps, only 12 (24%) returned to prior PFF level of performance at any point (RTP Performance)
- Among those 12, 7 (14%) returned to prior performance after 1 year and 5 (10%) after 2 years.
- OL specifically was 6/17 (35%) RTP, 1/16 (6%) RTP Games, 1/16 (6%) RTP Starts, and 2/16 (13%) RTP Performance with 1 RTPP (6%) after 1 year and 1 (6%) after 2 years.
We are not talking about great odds here people. The media and agents can cook this up howevery they want to cook it. Its a blood-flow injury, so it's going to heal up just fine. Healing up doesn't mean he's ever going to be able to play the same. The elasticity of that tendon is forever affected. His ability to generate power and torque from his quads to the ground is forever affected.
You can look deeper at the stats if you want. Purely looking at OL, he has a 13% chance of ever returning to play at his prior level of performance (this favors Simmons over RTP Starts or RTP Games). Data says 83% of NFL first-round picks on the offensive line hit. So, chances are you'll play somewhere on the OL. 59% actually hit at OT, so a healthy portion of guys drafted to be OTs end up playing some other position.
So if he has a 13% shot of returning to his prior form and a 59% chance of playing OT, then he falls somewhere in the neighborhood of an 8% chance he'll make it as an OT. He has about an 11% chance of ever being anything on the OL.
Is that what you want from your 1st round pick, folks? I don't. In fact, that screams 7th rounder or UDFA. That doesn't even scream 2nd or 3rd rounder.
I'd be willing to take a shot in the dark in round 3. I mean, there is that remote potential that he ends up defying all odds. It's not due to his youth because less experienced, and younger players actually have worse odds in the study. It's merely one of those "so you're telling me there's a chance" situations.