Each year, Football Outsiders analyzes the injury reports for every team in the NFL and reports out a number called “Adjusted Games Lost.” This value is intended to take a team’s overall injuries over the course of the year — both those that cause players to sit out games and those that require an appearance on an injury report but not an absence on gameday —and express them in a single value.
On Thursday, Football Outsiders published the AGL values for 2017, and the Green Bay Packers saw a slight uptick in their injury rate from the 2016 season. Overall, their AGL number increased from 72.4 to 84.8, and their ranking across the league dropped from 15th to 21st (note that a worse ranking indicates a higher AGL number).
Furthermore, if you look at this number on a per-game basis, the Packers had 5.3 AGL per game, up from 4.5 the year previous. That difference could be due to Aaron Rodgers’ broken collarbone alone, as he missed nine games in total; because he plays the most important position in the sport, his absence was weighted more heavily than other injuries.
Another interesting note is that the Packers almost exactly matched the league-average rate at which players were active despite a Questionable designation on the final injury report. Green Bay’s Questionable players suited up about two-thirds of the time — 68.3% to be exact — right about even with the NFL’s average rate of 67%. However, the team used more Questionable designations than most other teams; they listed 60 players with that status throughout the year, a number exceeded by just five other teams.