**"Hi Darren, there's a lot of finger-pointing when we start losing games. You can take just about any jersey number on the field and some fanalyst has something bad to say about that player somewhere on the internet and is convinced that player (or a group of them) is to blame for the Cardinals being perennial losers. One thing I rarely see considered by fans is how injured we always seem to be.**
**Aaron Schatz' adjusted games lost metric, which accounts for missed games and reduced availability among starters and key situational players, puts the Cardinals among the leagues most injured teams the past four seasons. If we go back further the story doesn't change. All the way back to 2017 we have never been lower than 12th on that list.**
**I understand injuries are an unavoidable part of football but given how oddly repetitive this pattern seems have the Cardinals brass and/or medical staff looked into why the team has lost so many players?"**
I hadn't looked back, but I did write about [last year's record issues](https://www.azcardinals.com/news/cardinals-turned-out-to-be-one-of-most-injured-teams-since-2001). The Cardinals changed their strength-and-conditioning coach. Do I think the Cardinals analyze this all yearly? I'm sure they do. I am not privy to any of it, however.
But I'll say this, I am not big into the injury thing. Some guys, yeah, it's a killer. The Cardinals were crushed when Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton both went down in 2014. Palmer's finger/Tyrann Mathieu's knee messed up what 2015 might have been. I wonder if J.J. Watt would've made a difference in 2021.
Injuries are part of the NFL though. Every team has them. Good ones can overcome.