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Defensive backs face highest rates of injury
It's the most dangerous spot on the field. In 2000 through 2003, NFL data showed that the highest injury rates belong to cornerbacks and safeties. Nearly seven of 10 DBs are hurt every year, according to the NFL's weekly injury reports.
For those who get hurt, half will suffer another, unrelated injury before the season ends.
They also sustain the highest rates of the injuries most likely to be catastrophic; 102 defensive backs have suffered brain concussions or neck and spinal injuries during the past four years.
"With as many hits as we take, as much pain as we have after the game, it kind of scares you a little bit, you know?" said Eric Brown, a seven-year safety for the Houston Texans.
Players, managers and NFL executives all point to two factors that make defensive backs so vulnerable: their size and their job description.
Cornerbacks or safeties, who must be fast to hang with receivers, are predators watching their prey outgrow them.
Since 1943, the average NFL player has super-sized himself 25 percent in body mass. But the DB is barely bigger than his World War II counterpart, who averaged 6 feet and 187 pounds. Today, same height, with a mere 8 pounds of extra weight.
And now the DB faces a trend in the NFL for taller, thicker and faster wide receivers such as the Steelers' Plaxico Burress (6-5, 225) and the Minnesota Vikings' Randy Moss (6-4, 210).
"You're trying to tackle a man who weighs, what, 230? 240? Most of the time, we're hitting tight ends, guys weighing 250, 260. And they tell us we have to hit these guys the same way? We're giving up 40, 50 pounds?" Brown said.
To compensate for his lack of body mass, a DB generates great speed before hitting a rusher or wideout. The collisions often come in midair.
"You don't have time to put yourself in the position for the perfect tackle," said Oakland Raiders safety David Terrell. "Pretty much, you're thinking, 'I've got to get this guy down.' Or hit him as hard as you can. I mean, it's a violent sport and most guys don't think about that when they tackle. They just throw their bodies around."
Players like Terrell learn from youth leagues on to keep their "neck up" when tackling. Lowering their heads runs the risk of fracturing spine and neck bones. Broken vertebrae have given the league two paralysis cases over the past 30 years, Mike Utley and Daryl Stingley.
At the same time, however, DBs are expected to go for the ball and force turnovers. They try to create fumbles by turning their helmets, necks and trunks into a human bottle openers, prying the pigskin loose.
Their helmets often act like the tip of a spear, a 4-pound bludgeon pinning the ball against the receiver's trunk and breaking his ribs.
In fact, wideouts suffer the most rib trauma in the league -- 35 over the last four years, according to NFL injury reports. Not surprisingly, DBs suffer a third more head, neck and spine injuries than their fellow players -- and are 26 percent more likely to sustain a concussion -- but report no fractured ribs.
Medical experts point to those anomalies and worry DBs are taking too many risks with head-first contact. In March, the National Athletic Trainers Association asked the NFL to better enforce rules outlawing head-down contact, or "spearing."
Spearing is a unique rule in football because, properly enforced, it's the only penalty designed to protect the player committing the foul. In any given game, 40 or more hits might meet the NFL's definition of spearing because of now routine head-down contact, according to the athletic trainers' studies of game film.
"That's what we're trying to fight, this idea that somehow head-down contact has been ingrained as part of the game, that it's part of football, and that nobody can do anything about it, and when it does happen, it's a 'freak accident' that wasn't preventable," said Jonathan Heck, athletic training coordinator at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey and a co-author of the trainers' report.
The problem for DBs is that game films say they're four times more likely to lead with their heads than the players they're hitting, so they will accrue the most penalties and fines.
"Pretty soon, I don't even think they're going to keep safeties around," said Brown, the Houston player. "I think they're going to get rid of us. It's to the point where they don't even need us there anymore."
