Why the Bills can never be 1st Class in the NFL

[PUNT750]

Is this all a bit absurd?? Installing the same field turf used for the past 8 seasons with a very low safety rating and then building a state of the art training center for conditioning and to rehabilitate injured players!

“A-Turf will be completing the turf playing surface replacement at New Era Field just in time for the 2019 NFL season. In the meantime, Terry & Kim Pegula (team owners) and Bills players are celebrating the opening of a brand-new, world-class, 41,000 s.f. Sports Performance Center. It seamlessly links the club’s athletic training, strength and conditioning, and sports science departments. A-Turf installed a turf area for warm-up, post-workout, and flexibility work.”

____________________________________________________________________________________

AS PER THE FIVE YEAR STUDY BELOW  - - The injury rates below are given per 1,000 athlete-exposures (AEs). One AE is defined as one player participating in one practice or game. Previous studies have shown that more than 80 percent of NFL injuries occur in games.

Overall Injury Rates by Turf Type   - - Five (5) Year Study by Football Outsiders - -

[Injury rates with 95 percent confidence by turf type]

The overall injury rates for grass and artificial turf are 16.9 and 17.2 per 1,000 AEs, respectively -- a modest difference.

 

Matrix Turf has the best overall injury rate (14.2 per 1,000 AEs), while A-Turf's Titan product brings up the rear at 18.8.

Any conclusions we can draw about Matrix and A-Turf are tempered by the fact that they're only installed at one stadium each -- Dallas and Buffalo, respectively. We may just be seeing the effects of healthy or unhealthy rosters, injury reporting habits, or good and bad training staffs.

One way to control for that is to just look at the visiting teams who play on this turf. Here Matrix still leads the way at 15.6 (injury rates are generally higher for away teams than home teams) Maybe Dallas's roster or trainers were having a positive impact.  A-Turf looks worse than it did before for visiting teams (21.0 per 1,000 AEs), suggesting Buffalo's training staff also isn't to blame.

It’s no wonder the Bills can’t be respected in the NFL.  It’s a half-ass operation with Erie County buying dirt cheap field turf from a local supplier while the Pegula’s spend $18mil on equipment & a training center to repair players from that turf.  This is Twilight Zone stuff!

[Paulus]

The title rubbed me the wrong way, but the post seems legit. Good point. I'd still like to see the study. Could be related to climate, sample size (the Bills are the only team using the stuff), etc.

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Paulus

[The Senator]

 

Seems like the very definition of insanity to me.

.

[PUNT750]

20 minutes ago, Paulus said:

The title rubbed me the wrong way, but the post seems legit. Good point. I'd still like to see the study. Could be related to climate, sample size (the Bills are the only team using the stuff), etc.

 

Thank you for the comment.  It rubs me the wrong way too. 

[Buffalo Junction]

Who else is using turf in an outdoor stadium with a northern climate? Comparing injury rates from a controlled environment and an uncontrolled environment is a bit misleading. How do the numbers change if they just used September games at New Era? Additionally, are these injuries lower body injuries, or does this include all injuries that occurred during a game on the surface like helmet to helmet concussions?

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Buffalo Junction
extra question

[Haplo848]

11 minutes ago, Buffalo Junction said:

Who else is using turf in an outdoor stadium with a northern climate? Comparing injury rates from a controlled environment and an uncontrolled environment is a bit misleading. How do the numbers change if they just used September games at New Era? Additionally, are these injuries lower body injuries, or does this include all injuries that occurred during a game on the surface like helmet to helmet concussions?

 

 

This exactly. Your numbers have a range of 4.6 per 1000, without factoring in random chance or any other contributions to injury rates. What exactly do they say constitutes an injury? If a guy has a head-to-head collision and gets a concussion, is that included in the number of injuries? Despite the fact that it had no relation to the turf? Have they compared injury rates among different teams with the same turf to see if there are other factors, like climate, or style of play? Do cold weather teams get more injuries? The Bills and Cowboys have both been big running teams, there's going to be more collisions per play, more chances to hurt yourself than with an aerial attack. There is SO much more to injuries in general than what type of turf you play on. 

 

To be quite honest, it really just sounds like you want any excuse to s*** on the Bills, whether it makes sense or not. 

[PUNT750]

25 minutes ago, Buffalo Junction said:

Who else is using turf in an outdoor stadium with a northern climate? Comparing injury rates from a controlled environment and an uncontrolled environment is a bit misleading. How do the numbers change if they just used September games at New Era? Additionally, are these injuries lower body injuries, or does this include all injuries that occurred during a game on the surface like helmet to helmet concussions?

 

Both NY teams, Bengals, Patriots and Seattle which is kind of a Northern climate!  The facts don't lie!  A-Turf is bad - worse than other surfaces.

AND - I love the BILLS!   Spending $18 mil on training facilities is wonderful.  I just don't get letting Erie County buy our field turf with a national bad reputation for injuries through a local vendor who has donated money to the County Executive over the years.  Get it!!!

Edited April 22, 2019 by PUNT750

[Buffalo Junction]

6 minutes ago, PUNT750 said:

Both NY teams, Bengals, Patriots and Seattle which is kind of a Northern climate!  The facts don't lie!  A-Turf is bad - worse than other surfaces.

Okay. But what are the injury rates for Metlife and Paul Brown Stadium? How do they compare to Buffalo's A-Turf by the numbers? I'm also keeping in mind that the only teams with truly comparable conditions use natural grass. Is Dallas a massive outlier, or is Buffalo?

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Buffalo Junction

[PUNT750]

15 minutes ago, Buffalo Junction said:

Okay. But what are the injury rates for Metlife and Paul Brown Stadium? How do they compare to Buffalo's A-Turf by the numbers? I'm also keeping in mind that the only teams with truly comparable conditions use natural grass. Is Dallas a massive outlier, or is Buffalo?

 

The study is simple.  They are just comparing the NFL fields that use artificial turf and the injuries ratios.  NO factors like wind, rain, cold etc.  Of those teams Buffalo with A-Turf is rated the worst.  What can I say!!!  Cincinnati uses Shaw Sports Momentum Pro turf and obviously it falls between Dallas and Buffalo!!!  New England uses Field Turf and the same is true for them!!

[Haplo848]

17 minutes ago, Haplo848 said:

 

This exactly. Your numbers have a range of 4.6 per 1000, without factoring in random chance or any other contributions to injury rates. What exactly do they say constitutes an injury? If a guy has a head-to-head collision and gets a concussion, is that included in the number of injuries? Despite the fact that it had no relation to the turf? Have they compared injury rates among different teams with the same turf to see if there are other factors, like climate, or style of play? Do cold weather teams get more injuries? The Bills and Cowboys have both been big running teams, there's going to be more collisions per play, more chances to hurt yourself than with an aerial attack. There is SO much more to injuries in general than what type of turf you play on. 

 

To be quite honest, it really just sounds like you want any excuse to s*** on the Bills, whether it makes sense or not. 

 

Ok, I just thought about it some more, and your study is even more ridiculous than I thought. It claims 18.8 AEs for the turf the Bills play on. Based on the OP's definition of an AE up there, that means there are ~100 AEs/game of football played. Which means in 10 weeks, you've got one set of ~1000 AEs. In a 10 week period, it attributes 18.8 injuries purely to the turf alone, or nearly 2 injuries per game, or 1 injury that is directly attributable to the turf that football is played on per game per team. That's utterly ridiculous. There are injuries in football. You get something like 5 injuries of varying degree (out for more than a few plays) per game per team. You're saying that a full 20% of those injuries are purely the cause of the turf that the game is being played on? That sounds like B.S. to me. 

[Buffalo Junction]

6 minutes ago, PUNT750 said:

The study is simple.  They are just comparing the NFL fields that use artificial turf and the injuries ratios.  NO factors like wind, rain, cold etc.  Of those teams Buffalo with A-Turf is rated the worst.  What can I say!!!  Cincinnati uses Shaw Sports Momentum Pro turf and obviously it falls between Dallas and Buffalo!!!  New England uses Field Turf and the same is true for them!!

Well, LINK TO THE STUDY?

 

[PUNT750]

11 minutes ago, Haplo848 said:

 

Ok, I just thought about it some more, and your study is even more ridiculous than I thought. It claims 18.8 AEs for the turf the Bills play on. Based on the OP's definition of an AE up there, that means there are ~100 AEs/game of football played. Which means in 10 weeks, you've got one set of ~1000 AEs. In a 10 week period, it attributes 18.8 injuries purely to the turf alone, or nearly 2 injuries per game, or 1 injury that is directly attributable to the turf that football is played on per game per team. That's utterly ridiculous. There are injuries in football. You get something like 5 injuries of varying degree (out for more than a few plays) per game per team. You're saying that a full 20% of those injuries are purely the cause of the turf that the game is being played on? That sounds like B.S. to me. 

 

visitors to the only field with A-Turf -- New Era Field in Buffalo -- suffer a high overall injury rate. At 23.0, they are effectively tied for the worst overall rate. This would translate to roughly seven or eight more injuries over the course of a full home slate for a team playing in Buffalo instead of a league-average stadium like New Orleans.

[Buffalo Junction]

29. Buffalo Bills: Ralph Wilson Stadium, Orchard Park, N.Y.

The only field using the A-Turf Titan infill artificial system hasn’t gotten a good rap around the league. It is tough to tell if the cold weather in Buffalo has put a difficult spin on the Ralph Wilson Stadium turf or if this style of artificial turf just doesn’t have the same comfort level as the rest of the league.

 

Link:

https://www.si.com/nfl/2015/10/01/nfl-stadium-turf-grass-rankings

[Thurman#1]

You didn't link!!!!  Wonder why?

 

So, since you didn't link, all I can do is guess that it's the post that ends like this:

 

 

 

"Conclusions

 

"Unfortunately, our confidence intervals are too wide to draw many firm conclusions, but it may be worth trying out Matrix Turf at a couple more stadiums to see if its low overall injury rate is sustainable in a larger sample. Even when we zero in on lower leg injuries, it doesn't look meaningfully worse than grass. A-Turf, Momentum Turf, and FieldTurf raise eyebrows, but these differences could be due to chance or improper maintenance rather than issues with the product itself."

 

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2017/turf-type-and-nfl-injuries-part-i

 

 

Is that the one you mean? The one that also says this:   

 

"We're looking at these stadium rates through turf-colored glasses, but the rate in any given stadium is a factor of many things. For example, the home team's baseline health and training staff skill could play a role. We have attempted to control for this by only looking at visiting teams. Climate is another possible factor, but it's beyond the scope of this post. A third possible factor is that some teams are more likely than others to injure their opponents. For example, if we had split the NYC stadium between the Giants and Jets, the Giants would have the fifth-lowest overall injury rate, while the Jets would have been in the top half. To investigate this we could control for the injury rate for Team A's opponents when Team A is on the road. However, that is also beyond the scope of this post."

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Thurman#1

[ALF]

My main concern would be trying to reduce number of ACL injuries

 

[HOUSE]

I played on Gravel with no shoes

 

 

..

Edited April 22, 2019 by HOUSE

[LeGOATski]

I think the new training facilities will do more towards preventing injuries than replacing the turf would.

[unbillievable]

What is the rate of injury for other stadiums around the Buffalo area, not using A-turf?

[bmur66]

Yea but who else can brush the snow off the field and make a pile of rubber pellets?

[Patrick Duffy]

1 hour ago, HOUSE said:

I played on Gravel with no shoes

 

 

..

 

I played naked in a field of fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My fish is bigger than yours