# Late-Round Perspectives: Dr. Deepak Chona

An episode of [The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1224965828), 23 Oct 2026, 53 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0a233618-d694-4c81-a139-b34e00f98fb1/9515915c-c95a-402f-b987-b4eb00f4f6df/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5747cc82-33a9-497c-8353-b34e00f98fbe

Dr. Deepak Chona (@SportMDAnalysis) joins JJ to discuss injuries across the league, how fantasy managers should think about injury risk and recovery timelines, injury proneness, and more. Make sure to check out LateRound.com to become a member! The new Members Hub is the place for rankings and tiers, data dumps, and more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Dr.
[0:01] Speaker 2: Deepak Chona is a Stanford and Harvard-trained sports surgeon who
[0:03] Speaker 2: founded SportsMed Analytics.
[0:05] Speaker 1: He's been featured on ESPN, NBC, and CBS.
[0:08] Speaker 2: He's a diehard Texans fan, and he's got the most
[0:10] Speaker 2: impressive academic resume of anyone who's ever been on Perspectives.
[0:14] Speaker 2: These are his late-round perspectives. You're definitely the most educated
[0:30] Speaker 2: of anyone who's ever been on Perspectives. You literally went
[0:33] Speaker 2: from Harvard to mom's basement. So I don't know if
[0:35] Speaker 2: that's a direction you really want to be going in
[0:38] Speaker 2: right now. But I appreciate you hopping on and talking
[0:42] Speaker 2: with me today.
[0:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, no. Like I said, man, it's been a big
[0:46] Speaker 3: fan for a long time. And I would say you
[0:50] Speaker 3: have kind of the most thoughtful and analytic approach in
[0:54] Speaker 3: the game. So I'm all about it.
[0:57] Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
[0:57] Speaker 2: I see that we're matching today, too, which is a
[1:01] Speaker 2: good start to the show. I do want to talk about, though,
[1:03] Speaker 2: your background and how you got into this stuff and what.
[1:07] Speaker 1: You're doing and all that.
[1:08] Speaker 2: I know that you've obviously grown a larger audience year
[1:12] Speaker 2: over year, and you've been doing a lot of stuff.
[1:13] Speaker 2: But for anyone who doesn't know you and what you
[1:16] Speaker 2: do and your background, just give us that background.
[1:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate that. So I am an orthopedic sports surgeon.
[1:23] Speaker 3: I have been in practice in Houston. for about three
[1:28] Speaker 3: years now. I got started with a brand that we've
[1:34] Speaker 3: started called Sportsman Analytics. Basically, the idea being, can we
[1:38] Speaker 3: take big data about injuries in the NFL and give
[1:43] Speaker 3: you advantages week after week in terms of fantasy football-related
[1:47] Speaker 3: outcomes and betting-related outcomes? The reason this started, if you
[1:52] Speaker 3: go back to my college sophomore year, I very vividly
[1:56] Speaker 3: remember watching SportsCenter and somebody was injured. I had a
[2:00] Speaker 3: knee injury in the NBA finals and some guy came
[2:03] Speaker 3: on and he was talking on ESPN about this is
[2:05] Speaker 3: the effect of this injury. And I was like, I
[2:09] Speaker 3: don't know what he does, but I want to do that.
[2:11] Speaker 3: And that's where this kind of idea took shape. And
[2:14] Speaker 3: then back in 2020, when we didn't really know much
[2:17] Speaker 3: about COVID, I caught it very early and they told
[2:22] Speaker 3: me at residency, hey, here's a hotel room. stay there.
[2:26] Speaker 3: Don't come out until you test negative, which ended up
[2:30] Speaker 3: taking six weeks. So the first couple of weeks of,
[2:34] Speaker 3: of COVID kind of, you know, kicked my butt. I
[2:36] Speaker 3: was just sleeping the whole time. And then I woke
[2:39] Speaker 3: up all of a sudden, well-rested and was like, Hey,
[2:43] Speaker 3: what do I do with my time? And a buddy
[2:45] Speaker 3: was basically told me like, nobody's going to give you
[2:48] Speaker 3: a mic. Like you gotta go, you gotta go get it.
[2:51] Speaker 3: So that's when I started posting. And kind of one
[2:54] Speaker 3: thing led to another. And I've been really lucky to meet,
[2:56] Speaker 3: you know, a lot of good people who have opened
[2:57] Speaker 3: doors for me. And as a result, kind of here
[3:00] Speaker 3: we are several years later.
[3:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[3:03] Speaker 2: I mean, so when you saw the thing on ESPN,
[3:06] Speaker 2: were you pre-med at that time? Like you knew you
[3:08] Speaker 2: were going to get into medicine, but was that like
[3:10] Speaker 2: the turning point in going into sports medicine?
[3:13] Speaker 3: To some degree, I had interest in math and science,
[3:16] Speaker 3: like pretty much my whole life. And I was kind
[3:18] Speaker 3: of vaguely on that pre-med track as a lot of
[3:20] Speaker 3: people are when they're not really sure when they enter college.
[3:24] Speaker 3: And that was very much what set it off for
[3:27] Speaker 3: me that, okay, now I'm doing, I want to do that.
[3:30] Speaker 3: That person was specifically orthopedic sports surgery. And I said, okay, well,
[3:35] Speaker 3: that's what I got to do to move on. And
[3:38] Speaker 3: then I was at Vanderbilt for college and right across
[3:41] Speaker 3: the street, there was a big med center. And I
[3:44] Speaker 3: happened to be fortunate that they were open to having
[3:47] Speaker 3: you know, a college kid who didn't really know much
[3:50] Speaker 3: shadow them and just stand there silently in the corner, but, uh,
[3:53] Speaker 3: but just absorb. So yeah, it was, it was, uh,
[3:56] Speaker 3: it was fortunate that way.
[3:59] Speaker 2: And your education track, you were at Vandy and then
[4:01] Speaker 2: you went to Penn.
[4:02] Speaker 1: Is that right? And then Harvard, is that how, is
[4:04] Speaker 1: that the, the, the path?
[4:06] Speaker 3: Uh, yeah. So I went to Penn for med school
[4:08] Speaker 3: and then, uh, Stanford for residency for five years. Yeah.
[4:12] Speaker 3: And then, uh, I did a fellowship at Harvard and
[4:14] Speaker 3: Boston children's hospital for one year. And after that, then
[4:18] Speaker 3: my family, I grew up in, in Texas. So, um,
[4:22] Speaker 3: having my family all, all kind of back there, it
[4:25] Speaker 3: was a soft landing to come back home to, to Houston,
[4:29] Speaker 3: still feel like you had city access and, and that
[4:31] Speaker 3: sort of thing. But, uh, and then I'm a diehard
[4:34] Speaker 3: Texans fan have been my whole life. So it was,
[4:37] Speaker 3: it was a easy decision once it, once it all
[4:39] Speaker 3: came together.
[4:40] Speaker 2: And you still, I mean, you're practicing, you're doing, you're
[4:42] Speaker 2: doing your, your regular thing as a doctor while also
[4:45] Speaker 2: doing the stuff on the side with fantasy and sports
[4:47] Speaker 2: betting and stuff like that.
[4:49] Speaker 3: Totally. Yeah. And I I've been lucky because my practice
[4:52] Speaker 3: has been, we kind of had an arrangement that I
[4:55] Speaker 3: can keep doing this as long as it doesn't, you know,
[4:58] Speaker 3: kind of overlap too significantly. Of course, like fantasy football is,
[5:03] Speaker 3: is kind of a separate thing than Then the medical side.
[5:06] Speaker 3: So it's medically informed, but no medical advice, of course,
[5:11] Speaker 3: through this type of stuff.
[5:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
[5:14] Speaker 3: All right.
[5:14] Speaker 2: I do want to kind of get into this topic
[5:18] Speaker 2: of perception with... I guess I would say I'm putting
[5:23] Speaker 2: this in like giant quotes because I'm saying this is
[5:25] Speaker 2: how other people frame it, but like internet doctors, right?
[5:28] Speaker 2: Obviously you're an, you're an actual doctor. This is not
[5:31] Speaker 2: the way that I view things or see things. I
[5:34] Speaker 2: wouldn't have you on perspectives if I did, but there's
[5:37] Speaker 2: a lot of people out there who are very critical.
[5:40] Speaker 2: I would argue that, overly critical about what these internet
[5:47] Speaker 2: doctors are doing and what you're able to do and
[5:50] Speaker 2: not be able to do based on what you're watching
[5:52] Speaker 2: on TV. So I guess what I want to start
[5:54] Speaker 2: here with is what would you say to people who
[5:57] Speaker 2: are a little bit more critical about what you're doing
[6:00] Speaker 2: or the other folks that are out there that are
[6:01] Speaker 2: doing this? who have done it for a lot of years,
[6:05] Speaker 2: what would you tell them, basically the haters, but what
[6:07] Speaker 2: would you say to them about how you're analyzing things
[6:10] Speaker 2: and what you're seeing on a television screen and why
[6:12] Speaker 2: it can still be helpful?
[6:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting point, especially, I mean,
[6:17] Speaker 3: this week, very timely for those who follow Twitter. But
[6:21] Speaker 3: I would say, broadly speaking, Twitter doctors or injury doctors online,
[6:26] Speaker 3: it's been a thing for a long time. It's not
[6:29] Speaker 3: that recent, but recently there's been several of us out
[6:32] Speaker 3: there I think whenever you see something on the TV,
[6:36] Speaker 3: you can usually gain some information. Lamar Jackson, you can
[6:40] Speaker 3: call it a medial low ankle or a high ankle,
[6:44] Speaker 3: but you have to do so with the caveat that
[6:47] Speaker 3: you don't know what it actually feels like unless you're
[6:49] Speaker 3: putting your hands on it and seeing the MRIs and
[6:52] Speaker 3: that sort of stuff. There's always that degree of I
[6:56] Speaker 3: think humility that has to go into it. If you're
[6:58] Speaker 3: really going to approach it wisely with that being said,
[7:00] Speaker 3: you know, we, we do the best we can with
[7:02] Speaker 3: the information we have. And I think that's kind of
[7:05] Speaker 3: true of all fantasy analysts, not even those who aren't
[7:09] Speaker 3: looking at the medical side, you're not in the rooms
[7:11] Speaker 3: game planning with the coaches. You're just kind of taking
[7:13] Speaker 3: the trends and looking at what information you have. I
[7:16] Speaker 3: think where people get a little bit annoyed is when
[7:21] Speaker 3: fantasy doctors or online folks are claim to know too much. And,
[7:27] Speaker 3: and that's where I think even myself, I find it
[7:29] Speaker 3: off putting, uh, with that being said, you know, if
[7:32] Speaker 3: I weren't doing this myself, there's guys out there like
[7:35] Speaker 3: Jeff Mueller, Adam Hutchinson, who I would be following anyway,
[7:38] Speaker 3: as a fan of their work. Cause it's just that good. So, uh,
[7:42] Speaker 3: and several others, I don't mean to exclude anybody, but
[7:45] Speaker 3: just from the standpoint of like why it gets a
[7:48] Speaker 3: bad rap, I think it's because there's been a little
[7:49] Speaker 3: bit of kind of a competition sensation of like, we've
[7:53] Speaker 3: got to be first, but I think by doing that,
[7:56] Speaker 3: sometimes you compromise the accuracy. If you overstate your confidence
[8:01] Speaker 3: level in any of these things, then I think that
[8:05] Speaker 3: is the other potentially off-putting aspect to it. Overall, I
[8:09] Speaker 3: think it's a field that's not going away, but I
[8:15] Speaker 3: think there's a lot of reasons for the perceptions.
[8:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I've said this before, because I've
[8:19] Speaker 2: had other folks, I mean, the guys you just mentioned,
[8:21] Speaker 2: I've had on perspectives before, you know, Dr. Edwin Porras,
[8:24] Speaker 2: who was doing a lot of stuff, who's kind of
[8:27] Speaker 2: like taking sort of a step back from the fantasy
[8:30] Speaker 2: space a little bit over the last couple of years.
[8:31] Speaker 1: But like, I've talked to them.
[8:33] Speaker 2: And I've said this before on the show, I try
[8:34] Speaker 2: to you know, engage in these conversations with, with, you know,
[8:37] Speaker 2: folks like you, because I, I think it's really, really
[8:39] Speaker 2: important for people to recognize that like us as either
[8:43] Speaker 2: a fantasy analyst or a fan of the game, whatever
[8:45] Speaker 2: the case may be, you're still forecasting in some way
[8:49] Speaker 2: with unknown information. You know, like you said, it's like,
[8:52] Speaker 2: you can say this player did poorly on this play,
[8:55] Speaker 2: but you don't know for sure what that play was
[8:57] Speaker 2: supposed to be like, like what the call specifically was
[9:00] Speaker 2: for that player. We see it all the time with
[9:01] Speaker 2: like the PFF critiques, right. With the way that, that like,
[9:05] Speaker 2: you know, a PFF PFF might say, and this is
[9:07] Speaker 2: not me crapping on PFF either. It's just that like,
[9:11] Speaker 2: we're looking at a, a wide number of plays and
[9:14] Speaker 2: a wide number of data points.
[9:16] Speaker 1: And of course, like, there's nuance to all of that, right?
[9:19] Speaker 2: Like when I say a player has an expected point
[9:22] Speaker 2: value of X in a given week, I'm not saying
[9:25] Speaker 2: that like he definitely for sure should have scored that
[9:28] Speaker 2: many points. I'm just saying that like, generally speaking, players
[9:31] Speaker 2: in that environment with that many touches would have scored
[9:33] Speaker 2: that many points.
[9:34] Speaker 1: And then, oh, here's how many he scored, right? There's
[9:36] Speaker 1: a lot of nuance to all this.
[9:38] Speaker 2: I see what you're doing and what, you know, Jeff
[9:40] Speaker 2: is doing or whomever in the exact same way where
[9:43] Speaker 2: you're taking information that we have and you're trying to
[9:46] Speaker 2: distill it and make it consumable in some way.
[9:49] Speaker 1: You're not gonna be right. A hundred percent of the time.
[9:51] Speaker 1: Hopefully you're right. Way, way more than you're wrong.
[9:53] Speaker 3: Right.
[9:54] Speaker 1: No different than any of.
[9:55] Speaker 2: My forecasts that I'm doing with the stuff, you know, with,
[9:58] Speaker 2: the player analysis and stuff like that.
[10:01] Speaker 1: But how you answered.
[10:02] Speaker 2: That is really interesting because I feel the exact same
[10:05] Speaker 2: way about fantasy analysts where... Like, like, you know, I have, uh,
[10:10] Speaker 2: I've built up this listenership and readership and such over
[10:13] Speaker 2: the last 15 years and really like, do I get trolls?
[10:17] Speaker 1: Yes. Like people come after me, whatever. That's just part
[10:19] Speaker 1: of the gig. Like it's going to happen.
[10:21] Speaker 2: But generally speaking, when I'm on Twitter, you know, 99.9%
[10:25] Speaker 2: of my interactions are pretty favorable.
[10:28] Speaker 1: Like they're, they're not.
[10:29] Speaker 2: And it's because if you're approaching this with at least
[10:32] Speaker 2: some humility and and you're not doing it in a
[10:34] Speaker 2: way where you're saying it for certain, people recognize that,
[10:38] Speaker 2: and they're not as aggressive back to you. The folks
[10:42] Speaker 2: who are complaining about getting trolled all the time are
[10:44] Speaker 2: the people who are just throwing garbage out there, and
[10:47] Speaker 2: they're doing it without that much thoughtfulness.
[10:49] Speaker 3: I fully agree. And there's a lot of nuance to it.
[10:52] Speaker 3: And I think those who, again, as you said, lean
[10:57] Speaker 3: on the data, I think you can't really fault them
[11:00] Speaker 3: and the other folks. I think there's still room for
[11:05] Speaker 3: all of us to improve. And I think the other
[11:08] Speaker 3: injury doctors out there, I learn from their posts sometimes. So,
[11:10] Speaker 3: I appreciate everybody's work. I think it's kind of a
[11:15] Speaker 3: real community or field that's evolving. Yeah. Yeah.
[11:17] Speaker 2: And again, it's the exact same deal with just like
[11:20] Speaker 2: general fantasy analysis.
[11:21] Speaker 1: Like I think it's just important.
[11:23] Speaker 2: And I say this a lot on these perspectives episodes
[11:25] Speaker 2: because these are kind of the this is kind of
[11:27] Speaker 2: the time where I can have more casual conversations and
[11:29] Speaker 2: just kind of like you know, say what's on my
[11:32] Speaker 2: mind more so than just being that robotic voice that's
[11:34] Speaker 2: telling you what to do with your fantasy rosters and
[11:36] Speaker 2: stuff and.
[11:36] Speaker 1: Talk about trends and stuff like that.
[11:38] Speaker 2: And like, you know, with the fantasy stuff, like I
[11:41] Speaker 2: think the more that you do any work in general,
[11:44] Speaker 2: it's almost like Dunning-Kruger in a way where, you know,
[11:46] Speaker 2: when you first start out, you think that you know
[11:48] Speaker 2: everything about a certain topic and then you start going
[11:50] Speaker 2: and you're like, oh God, I really need to learn
[11:53] Speaker 2: more about it.
[11:53] Speaker 1: Like there's so much stuff that I didn't realize.
[11:55] Speaker 2: And then eventually you have this realization of like, okay, yeah,
[11:58] Speaker 2: I'm probably like an expert in this field, but there's
[12:00] Speaker 2: a lot more, again, going back, like there's a lot
[12:02] Speaker 2: more of that humility attached to that.
[12:04] Speaker 1: Once you have experienced the whole lot and seen a
[12:07] Speaker 1: whole lot, I'll.
[12:08] Speaker 2: Tell you what, man, like I always see like people
[12:10] Speaker 2: on the come up in the as fantasy analysts and
[12:13] Speaker 2: the first couple of years, they're always just so overly
[12:16] Speaker 2: aggressive with their takes and thinking that they're right. And
[12:19] Speaker 2: it burns them every time. It's inevitable because we're going
[12:22] Speaker 2: to be wrong about this stuff all the time. It's
[12:24] Speaker 2: better to react to your priors and to change your
[12:27] Speaker 2: process and to try to improve and be better. as
[12:30] Speaker 2: opposed to just trying to be loudest and be first
[12:32] Speaker 2: and do all the things that I think in both
[12:35] Speaker 2: of our opinions is just the wrong approach to this
[12:37] Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So I do want to close this out, though,
[12:39] Speaker 2: by saying that you're doing great work. The guys you
[12:42] Speaker 2: mentioned are doing great work. And I think it's important
[12:44] Speaker 2: for people when they see those tweets or they see
[12:46] Speaker 2: the analysis and they see videos of you guys talking
[12:49] Speaker 2: about these injuries, that it's not coming from a place
[12:52] Speaker 2: of insane arrogance. It's coming from a place of this
[12:55] Speaker 2: is the information that we have. And this is the
[12:58] Speaker 2: take that I can give you based on that information, right?
[13:00] Speaker 3: Totally. And I think you and I are on the
[13:02] Speaker 3: same page that way. The other thing I would just
[13:05] Speaker 3: quickly mention is, you know, you don't get a 15
[13:07] Speaker 3: year following like you if you are wrong on hot
[13:11] Speaker 3: takes that often.
[13:13] Speaker 1: That's fair.
[13:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. Right. So I think the track record kind of
[13:16] Speaker 3: also accumulates over time.
[13:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
[13:19] Speaker 2: Another thing I want to talk to you about is
[13:21] Speaker 2: this idea of injury proneness, right? So there are players
[13:25] Speaker 2: that we seemingly bucket and say, oh, they get hurt
[13:28] Speaker 2: every year.
[13:29] Speaker 1: I mean, you had like CMC this year.
[13:31] Speaker 2: You had, you know, JK Dobbins gets hurt all the time.
[13:34] Speaker 2: Do you believe in injury proneness or do you think,
[13:37] Speaker 2: do you think it's more of like an edge case thing?
[13:39] Speaker 2: Do you think that there's nothing that has to do
[13:42] Speaker 2: with injury proneness? This is just a violent game and
[13:44] Speaker 2: this is just what happens. Like, what's your take on that?
[13:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you can make the argument in some
[13:49] Speaker 3: ways that all running backs and wide receivers are injury-prone
[13:53] Speaker 3: because of the violence of the game. If you were
[13:56] Speaker 3: to kind of look at it, I think there's two
[13:58] Speaker 3: buckets of players that the data that we have does
[14:01] Speaker 3: support them being injury-prone. One is players who have recurrent
[14:06] Speaker 3: soft tissue problems. And especially as those players reach age
[14:09] Speaker 3: 30 and beyond, it does seem to be an increased
[14:13] Speaker 3: risk compared to kind of their peer wide receivers. Mike
[14:16] Speaker 3: Evans was the biggest player that stood out this off season.
[14:19] Speaker 3: And we're kind of seeing that play out. Unfortunately, if
[14:21] Speaker 3: you look back a couple of years, Christian Watson was
[14:24] Speaker 3: previously on that list with the recurrent hamstring strains. When
[14:27] Speaker 3: you have kind of a weak point in the body
[14:30] Speaker 3: and something that's been recurrently injured, oftentimes you're going to
[14:33] Speaker 3: see that there's an imbalance. And with, with Christian Watson,
[14:36] Speaker 3: I would now kind of take him off of that
[14:38] Speaker 3: list because all of this information came out that they
[14:41] Speaker 3: took an off season, kind of biomechanically tested him and
[14:45] Speaker 3: sorted out the differences and basically neutralized them. And so
[14:49] Speaker 3: that soft tissue bucket, I think is one player, one
[14:52] Speaker 3: category of injury prone that is sometimes correctable, especially when
[14:54] Speaker 3: the players are younger. The other bucket is you mentioned
[14:58] Speaker 3: JK Dobbins, guys who have had major surgical injuries, especially
[15:02] Speaker 3: if they've had more than one are kind of in
[15:05] Speaker 3: that category, according to the data. And with JK Dobbins,
[15:09] Speaker 3: you know, you have the major knee injury, you have Achilles,
[15:13] Speaker 3: you and you have a major list, Frank injury of
[15:16] Speaker 3: the foot. So these each independently predict an increased injury
[15:22] Speaker 3: risk of some body part in the future for NFL
[15:26] Speaker 3: players in general. And, you know, when you start accumulating those,
[15:29] Speaker 3: then I would say that unfortunately is an injury prone player,
[15:32] Speaker 3: even though truthfully as a, as a sports surgeon, like
[15:35] Speaker 3: those are the guys I'm rooting for the hardest, but
[15:38] Speaker 3: I do think that there's an increased injury risk just subjectively.
[15:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I try to put myself in the
[15:44] Speaker 2: shoes of a player as someone who's now an unk, right?
[15:47] Speaker 1: That is now in my late 30s.
[15:50] Speaker 2: And I woke up this morning and I had a
[15:53] Speaker 2: decent night's sleep because it's the middle of the week
[15:54] Speaker 2: during football season, which is when I can actually sleep.
[15:57] Speaker 2: And I woke up and I'm like, man, I'm kind
[15:58] Speaker 2: of stiff this morning, right? Your body's just different when
[16:02] Speaker 2: you're older than when you were in your 20s. In
[16:04] Speaker 2: your 20s, you can do whatever you want and kind
[16:06] Speaker 2: of get away with it. As a teenager and.
[16:09] Speaker 3: Such, right?
[16:10] Speaker 2: I try to think about it that way sometimes, too,
[16:11] Speaker 2: where I'm like... I mean, yeah, it probably makes sense
[16:14] Speaker 2: that a player who has had something going on at
[16:17] Speaker 2: some point in their career. And now, like you said, they're,
[16:19] Speaker 2: they're past that age 30, like a Mike Evans or something.
[16:23] Speaker 1: You know, you're just playing the, you're just weighing the
[16:25] Speaker 1: risk reward of that in the end.
[16:27] Speaker 3: Right.
[16:27] Speaker 2: Like, like, you know, Evans, if Evans was like a
[16:30] Speaker 2: third round pick this year, it probably would have been
[16:32] Speaker 2: a lot scarier to go after him and draft him. And,
[16:34] Speaker 2: you know, and then he ended up being like a
[16:35] Speaker 2: fifth and sometimes even sixth rounder on, on some platforms
[16:38] Speaker 2: and stuff. So it just is a little bit different from,
[16:41] Speaker 2: from that perspective. as you're like tracking all of this
[16:43] Speaker 2: and looking at all this stuff, is that like, and
[16:46] Speaker 2: I know that you, you do like the pre-draft work
[16:48] Speaker 2: and stuff like that, but like, is there this like
[16:51] Speaker 2: database you're working with that you're saying, okay, this is
[16:54] Speaker 2: this guy's history. And it's saying this player will then
[16:57] Speaker 2: have this type of risk entering the year based on
[17:00] Speaker 2: all of these demographics and such.
[17:02] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it, you know, when, when we started
[17:05] Speaker 3: doing this back in 2020, I was It was kind
[17:07] Speaker 3: of fortunate timing because being in the Bay Area, California,
[17:12] Speaker 3: there was a lot of young talent that was looking
[17:15] Speaker 3: for some opportunity to do something. And because it was COVID,
[17:19] Speaker 3: a lot of the Stanford internships got shut down. And
[17:24] Speaker 3: I got in touch with several local college and high
[17:27] Speaker 3: school kids who helped put together databases on basically everything.
[17:33] Speaker 3: They would kind of it was a little bit before
[17:35] Speaker 3: the like AI was mainstream, I think. And they were
[17:39] Speaker 3: teaching me things about sentiment analysis and automatically like bringing
[17:44] Speaker 3: in headlines and injury databases were basically created from there.
[17:50] Speaker 3: And they've of course like refined them and gotten better
[17:52] Speaker 3: over the years, but those are a big part of it.
[17:56] Speaker 3: And then you, where's there's online, there's so many sources
[18:02] Speaker 3: and you have to kind of sort through a lot
[18:03] Speaker 3: of them. to say like, is this really what happened?
[18:06] Speaker 3: And sometimes they'll say like a meniscus was repaired, but
[18:10] Speaker 3: you'll see the player back in two weeks and that's
[18:12] Speaker 3: just not consistent. So there's a lot of kind of
[18:16] Speaker 3: reading between the lines, so to speak. So I think
[18:18] Speaker 3: some of it has to be by hand. There's some
[18:21] Speaker 3: of it, a lot of it is data-driven as much
[18:23] Speaker 3: as you can, but I think some of it just
[18:25] Speaker 3: has to have that, that sort of human touch to
[18:27] Speaker 3: a degree.
[18:28] Speaker 2: This year, more than other years, this is completely anecdotal.
[18:32] Speaker 2: So I should preface with that. This is definitely not
[18:34] Speaker 2: like me doing research on it or anything like that.
[18:37] Speaker 1: It just feels like.
[18:38] Speaker 2: NFL teams are becoming more and more difficult to trust
[18:41] Speaker 2: when it comes to injury timelines and reporting on injuries.
[18:45] Speaker 1: Have you noticed that this year?
[18:46] Speaker 2: And then how much weight do you put into the
[18:49] Speaker 2: information that teams are throwing out there?
[18:51] Speaker 1: I've noticed this a lot recently.
[18:53] Speaker 2: Jeff Mueller, who you mentioned, I had never seen him be,
[18:56] Speaker 2: and I know I'm not, this isn't like a bad
[18:59] Speaker 2: thing that I'm about to say about him, but I
[19:01] Speaker 2: like historically I had not seen him kind of like
[19:04] Speaker 2: disagree with what teams are saying or like say, oh, they're,
[19:08] Speaker 2: they might be lying about this. I think one example
[19:10] Speaker 2: of that this year was like the 80 Mitchell injury
[19:12] Speaker 2: where he had this hand issue. And he's like, I
[19:15] Speaker 2: remember Jeff tweeting about like, oh, this is probably like
[19:18] Speaker 2: surgery surgery. And they just didn't say anything about it.
[19:20] Speaker 2: And then three weeks later, there was this report about
[19:24] Speaker 2: it being surgery. It was surgery. That's why he was sidelined.
[19:28] Speaker 2: Have you noticed that becoming more and more of a
[19:30] Speaker 2: thing recently?
[19:31] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that it's always been a thing, if
[19:33] Speaker 3: I'm being honest. There's a lot of reports that never
[19:37] Speaker 3: really make it out. I think I was a little
[19:39] Speaker 3: bit fortunate to, in my residency experience, the guys who
[19:43] Speaker 3: trained me take care of the San Francisco 49ers. You're
[19:46] Speaker 3: just picking their brains. You learn that a lot of
[19:49] Speaker 3: the surgeries and a lot of the major injuries never
[19:53] Speaker 3: get reported. And the players and the agents want to
[19:56] Speaker 3: keep that in-house. The teams often want to keep that in-house.
[19:58] Speaker 3: It's to some degree a competitive advantage. So really, as
[20:01] Speaker 3: long as I've been in this, I have not really
[20:04] Speaker 3: trusted the reports and the comments as much. I try
[20:08] Speaker 3: to look most objectively at like the the data which
[20:12] Speaker 3: is most often practice report data yeah if you look
[20:16] Speaker 3: at uh coach speak index that's kind of helpful to
[20:19] Speaker 3: a degree but i would say there's so much variation
[20:21] Speaker 3: but you do learn certain coaches do tend to say
[20:24] Speaker 3: the same things repetitively and uh todd bowles with this
[20:27] Speaker 3: off season he said uh bucky irving might come back
[20:31] Speaker 3: in the like fall or the winter summer or something
[20:34] Speaker 3: and he was there first day of training camp and
[20:36] Speaker 3: then emeka buka may or may not be available to
[20:40] Speaker 3: us to start the season and he was there right
[20:43] Speaker 3: away so you know you learn okay that coach probably
[20:46] Speaker 3: not going to be super trustworthy baltimore when zay flowers
[20:49] Speaker 3: first got hurt they said oh he might come back
[20:50] Speaker 3: he might have come back in the game but then
[20:53] Speaker 3: he missed the next week and they said the same
[20:55] Speaker 3: thing actually about lamar and then he missed a couple
[20:58] Speaker 3: of weeks so you know you you kind of don't
[21:01] Speaker 3: really trust especially those post-game comments but I think, and
[21:05] Speaker 3: players do tend to be optimistic in general. So I
[21:08] Speaker 3: trust players when they are not optimistic, but I, otherwise
[21:12] Speaker 3: I kind of really, I think as many of us
[21:15] Speaker 3: have learned, you just got to stick to your, at
[21:18] Speaker 3: least as objective of data as you can get.
[21:21] Speaker 2: So I do have to throw out there, since you
[21:23] Speaker 2: mentioned the 49er stuff, is there like, How do you
[21:26] Speaker 2: feel about the substations though?
[21:27] Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We don't have to
[21:29] Speaker 3: dig into all of that.
[21:30] Speaker 2: I do want to ask also what you think the
[21:32] Speaker 2: biggest misconception is with the average football fan, the average
[21:36] Speaker 2: fantasy analyst about injuries and injury timelines.
[21:40] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the biggest thing here is that when
[21:42] Speaker 3: a player comes back, we assume, okay, he's ready to go.
[21:46] Speaker 3: Even if the injury designation goes away, he's often not
[21:50] Speaker 3: there all the way. And I think For example, this
[21:53] Speaker 3: past week, AJ Brown was a big example of that.
[21:55] Speaker 3: The high ankle, typically for a wide receiver, especially these
[21:59] Speaker 3: more high severity, high ankles, most often you would see
[22:03] Speaker 3: a pretty notable production hit. And although like AJ Brown's
[22:07] Speaker 3: were kind of, at least most people wrote them off
[22:10] Speaker 3: as drops. A lot of that is his ability to
[22:13] Speaker 3: track the ball, turn his body, react through the whole
[22:16] Speaker 3: kind of kinetic chain and you push off of that
[22:19] Speaker 3: high ankle. It's probably going to, continue to have some
[22:22] Speaker 3: limitations for a couple more weeks, but the injury designation
[22:25] Speaker 3: went away this week. And so we, I think a
[22:28] Speaker 3: lot of fans and fantasy football players think he's back
[22:32] Speaker 3: to full strength, whereas it's just really not the case.
[22:35] Speaker 3: I would say that's probably the return to performance and
[22:38] Speaker 3: return to play are two different things.
[22:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and that's something that you guys track
[22:42] Speaker 2: and such, like to be able to see and to say, hey,
[22:45] Speaker 2: and I know that you tweet about this a lot too.
[22:47] Speaker 1: It's really, really helpful.
[22:48] Speaker 2: But, you know, saying essentially like, hey, we usually see
[22:51] Speaker 2: a dip in production for X number of weeks based on,
[22:54] Speaker 2: and that's all... Is that based on just a general
[22:58] Speaker 2: history of players that are in that situation? Are you
[23:00] Speaker 2: also overlaying demographic information like age? And, you know, because
[23:05] Speaker 2: I know that I've talked to other doctors about this, where,
[23:08] Speaker 2: you know, obviously, like if a player tears his ACL,
[23:10] Speaker 2: if he's 22 years old or 23 years old, the.
[23:12] Speaker 1: Bounce back rate is going to be a.
[23:16] Speaker 2: So when you're saying those, when you're saying those kinds
[23:18] Speaker 2: of things, is that an overlay on the type of
[23:21] Speaker 2: like the demographic of that player, like an AJ Brown
[23:24] Speaker 2: being maybe a little bit older than the standard, you know,
[23:27] Speaker 2: 25 year old wide receiver that would be at the
[23:29] Speaker 2: true peak of his career, as opposed to maybe at
[23:31] Speaker 2: the peak, but then like kind of going in the,
[23:33] Speaker 2: you know, the downturn of that career.
[23:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's very age dependent. We find that
[23:39] Speaker 3: if you could boil it down to only three factors
[23:42] Speaker 3: that are most tied to kind of quicker recoveries, especially
[23:45] Speaker 3: from operative injuries like ACLs, age is number one, certain
[23:50] Speaker 3: combine metrics, actually vertical jump 40 time. If you kind
[23:54] Speaker 3: of calculate out their sort of athletic scores, I think
[23:57] Speaker 3: it's the RAS scores, I believe the kind of most
[24:00] Speaker 3: published one that, and then they're where they were drafted.
[24:04] Speaker 3: If they are under 25, that tends to be very relevant.
[24:08] Speaker 3: And once they're older, that, tends to kind of wash
[24:10] Speaker 3: out but uh those three factors for the young players
[24:14] Speaker 3: are kind of the ones that lead you to predict
[24:18] Speaker 3: the the faster bounce backs most players still follow the
[24:22] Speaker 3: same overall trends though so you you can see that
[24:26] Speaker 3: effect just amplified in some of the older players and
[24:28] Speaker 3: then especially the guys who have a notable injury history
[24:31] Speaker 3: you're kind of factoring that in as well so algorithms
[24:34] Speaker 3: if you will they have to i think factor in
[24:37] Speaker 3: both the uh player history and demographic info along with
[24:42] Speaker 3: their production is kind of what we take over once
[24:46] Speaker 3: they're 25 and over rather than draft capital.
[24:49] Speaker 2: With the draft capital thing, what's the logic behind that,
[24:52] Speaker 2: do you think? Is it the idea that they are probably,
[24:56] Speaker 2: because obviously athleticism and ability is embedded in what draft
[25:01] Speaker 2: capital is, and athleticism, I would assume, then would help
[25:04] Speaker 2: a player bounce back.
[25:05] Speaker 1: Is that really what it would probably come down to
[25:07] Speaker 1: as a data point?
[25:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of it is. And so,
[25:11] Speaker 3: and I would tell you, like, even anecdotally, I see
[25:13] Speaker 3: this in my practice that athletes who have a really
[25:18] Speaker 3: strong kind of quad and hamstring function prior to an
[25:22] Speaker 3: ACL surgery are the ones who are going to be
[25:24] Speaker 3: basically bouncing back faster. And that then kind of ties in,
[25:29] Speaker 3: I think, to the same logic that the more explosive
[25:31] Speaker 3: you are, the more room you have to even have
[25:34] Speaker 3: a little bit drop off from there. And still get
[25:37] Speaker 3: separation as a wide receiver or still beat somebody to
[25:40] Speaker 3: the corner as a running back. So, I think that's
[25:43] Speaker 3: probably where it comes from. The draft capital, I think,
[25:46] Speaker 3: is just almost a surrogate for production.
[25:50] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[25:51] Speaker 3: Because it's very hard to standardize college production, in my opinion. Yeah,
[25:54] Speaker 3: it is. So, that's where I think that very consistently
[25:59] Speaker 3: in our data, but also in published orthopedic studies seems
[26:03] Speaker 3: to be relevant.
[26:04] Speaker 2: Individual injuries are there any that you think are overrated
[26:09] Speaker 2: for fantasy like managers right like as in like someone
[26:13] Speaker 2: sees a high ankle for a running back and they
[26:15] Speaker 2: think it's this like massive deal but maybe it's not
[26:17] Speaker 2: that big of a deal or just something that fantasy
[26:21] Speaker 2: managers seem to like or analysts you know people who
[26:23] Speaker 2: have who are able to amplify their voice on social
[26:26] Speaker 2: media and stuff that they seem to just think is
[26:29] Speaker 2: way too big of a deal than it actually is these.
[26:31] Speaker 3: Days Yeah, I think the two that stand out to me,
[26:36] Speaker 3: one is the hamstring. And I think the reason that
[26:39] Speaker 3: we think of it as a huge deal is one,
[26:42] Speaker 3: time missed. Two, how common it is. And then three,
[26:45] Speaker 3: the re-injury rate with hamstrings is pretty high. And that
[26:49] Speaker 3: to me is different than the effect on performance. So
[26:52] Speaker 3: for example, we're probably going to see Saquon come back
[26:54] Speaker 3: this week. We saw Caleb Williams last week. Basically, you
[26:59] Speaker 3: don't usually see much of an efficiency hit. for players
[27:02] Speaker 3: when they come back. But the re-injury risk is the
[27:04] Speaker 3: thing that kind of stays on my radar for about
[27:07] Speaker 3: six weeks after they return. So that I think I,
[27:10] Speaker 3: I believe I think about that differently than the, than
[27:12] Speaker 3: most fans do. Uh, the other is shoulder designations. It's
[27:18] Speaker 3: in most cases, they don't cause major dips. So those
[27:22] Speaker 3: are the ones that I would say, like, I worry
[27:24] Speaker 3: about less from a performance standpoint, at least than I
[27:27] Speaker 3: think most people.
[27:30] Speaker 2: So with the hamstring thing, I'm just going to throw
[27:32] Speaker 2: this name out there because it's obviously been a huge deal,
[27:35] Speaker 2: but Jordan Tyson, right? Where he's coming up, you know, like,
[27:38] Speaker 2: like that's been a huge deal for him over the
[27:40] Speaker 2: last year. Now he re-injured it back in August. It
[27:44] Speaker 2: sounds like that they're slow playing it a little bit.
[27:46] Speaker 2: And so what you're saying, if I were to put
[27:49] Speaker 2: words in your mouth, but obviously you can certainly, you know,
[27:51] Speaker 2: take it further, but you're saying that when he, when
[27:54] Speaker 2: he's playing, when he's on the field, hypothetically, when he
[27:57] Speaker 2: comes back from this, let's cross our fingers that it's
[27:59] Speaker 2: after the buy, you know, they, have this game this weekend.
[28:01] Speaker 2: And then hopefully in a couple of weeks we see
[28:03] Speaker 2: Jordan Tyson and you can obviously correct that as well.
[28:05] Speaker 2: But if Jordan Tyson's back, you're not as concerned about
[28:08] Speaker 2: a performance dip per se, but you are concerned about
[28:11] Speaker 2: just a re-injury risk, especially with, with his history.
[28:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. Re-injury risk is the biggest thing on my radar
[28:17] Speaker 3: for him. Now the concern with performance because his was
[28:21] Speaker 3: so severe and also recurrent, typically you would see a
[28:25] Speaker 3: ramp up in their usage. So the snap share is
[28:28] Speaker 3: most often would not start out with what it will
[28:30] Speaker 3: be in the future. So with Jordan Tyson, I'm thinking
[28:36] Speaker 3: week nine would be the target after the buy. And
[28:39] Speaker 3: with that in mind, usually you'd see that somewhere around 60%
[28:43] Speaker 3: usage and ramping up, but the efficiency should be pretty
[28:47] Speaker 3: close to what you would expect. We obviously don't have
[28:50] Speaker 3: his sort of NFL career to compare it to, but, but,
[28:54] Speaker 3: but you would expect it to be pretty high efficiency
[28:56] Speaker 3: right away.
[28:57] Speaker 2: And then the shoulder thing, I'm thinking like DJ Moore
[28:59] Speaker 2: right now, right. Where that's been his issue. Is that
[29:03] Speaker 2: like a, like I've seen people say like, it's a
[29:05] Speaker 2: pain tolerance thing and it's a, it's a, like you
[29:07] Speaker 2: can shoot them up and then hope things that like are, are,
[29:10] Speaker 2: are fine from that perspective.
[29:11] Speaker 1: Is that kind of where we're at with like DJ Moore?
[29:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, to some degree, I think where you see the
[29:17] Speaker 3: differences are basically there's, The main two shoulder injuries, if
[29:22] Speaker 3: you had to obviously oversimplify it, but one is going
[29:25] Speaker 3: to be the AC joint, which is kind of when
[29:27] Speaker 3: you land on the tip of the shoulder. That you
[29:30] Speaker 3: can inject it with pretty mild consequence and most players
[29:34] Speaker 3: will play through. Now, the concern becomes if you fall
[29:38] Speaker 3: on it as he did, you react pretty easily. And
[29:41] Speaker 3: then it becomes a kind of a bigger deal. But
[29:44] Speaker 3: his performance when he initially returned was still pretty solid.
[29:47] Speaker 3: And that was without missing any time at first. So
[29:51] Speaker 3: with him and with that injury pattern in general, I
[29:55] Speaker 3: worry not significantly about it. Now, there's another type of
[29:59] Speaker 3: injury that you see, which is going to be your
[30:01] Speaker 3: kind of shoulder dislocations or your, which result in labrum tears.
[30:06] Speaker 3: And those, the labrum is like a, you could think
[30:08] Speaker 3: of it like a bumper that helps to give stability
[30:11] Speaker 3: around the socket of the shoulder. We saw last year,
[30:14] Speaker 3: two notable players, Xavier Worthy, week one, dislocated that shoulder.
[30:19] Speaker 3: And because of that, it's very prone to re-aggravation in season.
[30:23] Speaker 3: And they had to, Andy Reid commented that they had
[30:25] Speaker 3: to shrink his route tree. as a result. And the,
[30:29] Speaker 3: the sort of position overhead and reaching out, which is
[30:33] Speaker 3: obviously key for a wide receiver is where you can't
[30:35] Speaker 3: trust it. So that limits the ability pretty significantly. You
[30:40] Speaker 3: also saw Bucky Irving last year from week one to
[30:43] Speaker 3: four versus when he came back about four or five weeks,
[30:46] Speaker 3: the end of the season, his rushing production stayed the same,
[30:49] Speaker 3: but he had what is thought to be probably a
[30:52] Speaker 3: labral tear in his shoulder. And His passing game production
[30:56] Speaker 3: dropped off about 70% in pretty much all categories. So
[31:01] Speaker 3: that is pretty notable. But the guys who pop up
[31:04] Speaker 3: sort of out of the blue with a shoulder designation,
[31:08] Speaker 3: usually you don't see much of a dip for them.
[31:10] Speaker 3: And AC joints are the most common. You usually don't
[31:12] Speaker 3: see much of a dip for them either.
[31:14] Speaker 2: And then on the flip side of this, what do
[31:16] Speaker 2: you think are then kind of like underrated injuries? I
[31:18] Speaker 2: know that's a really weird way to phrase this, but
[31:21] Speaker 2: injuries that we see it happen and we're like, eh,
[31:25] Speaker 2: not a big deal.
[31:27] Speaker 1: But you're sitting there and you're like, I'm kind of
[31:28] Speaker 1: nervous about this.
[31:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, even mild high ankles typically do linger
[31:33] Speaker 3: and cause some notable dips. The concern, again, AJ Brown
[31:38] Speaker 3: is kind of one that really pops up and he
[31:40] Speaker 3: was on the more severe side. But you often see
[31:44] Speaker 3: this even with the mild ones like Justin Jefferson. I
[31:47] Speaker 3: was actually pleasantly surprised at how well he produced coming
[31:51] Speaker 3: off of his version of that injury. But you noticed
[31:55] Speaker 3: this week he's still listed as limited and questionable, even
[31:58] Speaker 3: though he's probably going to play. So this is something that's,
[32:01] Speaker 3: it's not, you know, a nothing injury, even though the
[32:04] Speaker 3: guy's already back on the field. That's probably, I think
[32:07] Speaker 3: the biggest one, because cutting and change of direction is
[32:10] Speaker 3: so key with that. For the most part, I would say,
[32:12] Speaker 3: I think we otherwise do a pretty good job in
[32:15] Speaker 3: terms of like the fantasy football community and understanding, you know,
[32:19] Speaker 3: this injury is relatively important and significant in how players
[32:23] Speaker 3: are going to come back.
[32:25] Speaker 1: Is there a difference for high ankle with running back
[32:27] Speaker 1: and wide receiver?
[32:28] Speaker 3: It's most pronounced with the wide receivers, but it's still
[32:31] Speaker 3: pretty prominent with the running backs. Uh, I would say
[32:34] Speaker 3: the key I think is, is just the ability to
[32:37] Speaker 3: cut off of basically change direction. Straight line motion is
[32:41] Speaker 3: not super affected with this, but, uh, with the, with
[32:44] Speaker 3: the wide receivers, you know, their separation basically, unless they're
[32:48] Speaker 3: one of those big body wide receivers, uh, kind of
[32:51] Speaker 3: relies on the cutting ability. And then in tracking the ball,
[32:55] Speaker 3: you kind of have to be able to turn and
[32:57] Speaker 3: maintain balance as well. So I think My sort of
[33:00] Speaker 3: anecdotal impression is that's probably why.
[33:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
[33:03] Speaker 2: That what you talked about with AJ... Now, AJ Brown's
[33:05] Speaker 2: playing tonight. This will drop on Friday. So we're not
[33:08] Speaker 2: giving takes about what's going to happen with AJ Brown.
[33:11] Speaker 2: But I think that if you specifically look at what
[33:14] Speaker 2: happened in week six, what you mentioned that's really interesting
[33:18] Speaker 2: is that I think a lot of people are like, oh,
[33:20] Speaker 2: he was just rusty. Or maybe some people are like, oh,
[33:24] Speaker 2: he's washed or something like that.
[33:26] Speaker 1: But I think that what... a takeaway that.
[33:28] Speaker 2: I have, at least as more of the layman here is,
[33:31] Speaker 2: is the fact that like, like that injury has an
[33:34] Speaker 2: impact on the rest of a player's body in the
[33:37] Speaker 2: way that this connects to this connects to this connects
[33:40] Speaker 2: to this.
[33:41] Speaker 1: And that it's in and of itself can have an
[33:43] Speaker 1: impact on their, their performance.
[33:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. And, and anybody who's played any
[33:48] Speaker 3: level of even recreational sport, if you have a foot injury,
[33:52] Speaker 3: it's probably going to change the way you try to
[33:55] Speaker 3: catch a ball. Right. And, And I think if you
[33:58] Speaker 3: don't have as much separation, you're not going to look
[34:01] Speaker 3: as good. And those are the key factors. So even
[34:05] Speaker 3: if that ball hits you in the hands, if you
[34:07] Speaker 3: have another guy on you because you can't separate, that's
[34:11] Speaker 3: going to log as a drop. But people assume it's
[34:13] Speaker 3: just hands, and I think it's much more.
[34:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, really interesting.
[34:16] Speaker 2: All right, I want to go player by player here
[34:18] Speaker 2: and go through some guys who have been banged up
[34:22] Speaker 2: and just get your insight on it because these players
[34:25] Speaker 2: are either... We know some of them are done right now,
[34:27] Speaker 2: but I'm curious about their 2027 outlook.
[34:29] Speaker 1: But we'll start with Brees Hall, who... I mean, it
[34:33] Speaker 1: sounded like he could have been back sooner.
[34:35] Speaker 2: It's like one of those situations where it's almost surprising
[34:39] Speaker 2: just given the actual timeline that they didn't put him
[34:42] Speaker 2: on short-term IR.
[34:43] Speaker 1: But where are we at with Brees Hall? Do you
[34:45] Speaker 1: think that he plays this week?
[34:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, it just came out maybe an hour ago that
[34:50] Speaker 3: he was out there on the field stretching. If he
[34:52] Speaker 3: logs limited practice today and tomorrow, then in most cases
[34:56] Speaker 3: he would play, but not see full workload. And the
[35:00] Speaker 3: fact that he had a DNP Wednesday play Most players,
[35:03] Speaker 3: if they're going to see that full workload, they would
[35:05] Speaker 3: have logged at least a limited on Wednesday. So I
[35:08] Speaker 3: think in my own kind of thinking about this injury,
[35:12] Speaker 3: I don't really expect much of an efficiency dip, but
[35:16] Speaker 3: that workload is kind of likely also to be affected
[35:19] Speaker 3: by having good play from Braylon Allen. Yeah. Yeah.
[35:22] Speaker 2: That's the other thing too, is obviously like when these
[35:24] Speaker 2: guys have someone that jump up and perform relatively well,
[35:27] Speaker 2: then There's no reason to force the issue with a
[35:31] Speaker 2: player like Brees.
[35:33] Speaker 1: Is it a week eight thing that we should imagine?
[35:35] Speaker 2: I don't know when they're biased, but we should imagine
[35:39] Speaker 2: Brees would be able to see his normal workload again.
[35:41] Speaker 1: Is it a one week thing or is it a
[35:42] Speaker 1: true ramp up?
[35:43] Speaker 3: It's usually one to two weeks, relatively quick. It's just, again,
[35:47] Speaker 3: a little bit user dependent based on this backfield touch
[35:51] Speaker 3: and coaching decisions. But in terms of most players, by
[35:55] Speaker 3: one to two weeks, they wouldn't have any limitations. Okay.
[35:57] Speaker 2: And then Mike Evans is next. So he obviously has
[36:00] Speaker 2: had this Achilles stuff going on. Sounds like Achilles tendonitis.
[36:03] Speaker 2: And that, correct me if I'm wrong, was something that
[36:05] Speaker 2: people were and what we were concerned about with Christian
[36:08] Speaker 2: McCaffrey at one point too, right? And so I guess
[36:11] Speaker 2: my question for you is, was it risky for him
[36:15] Speaker 2: to have played last week? And then has that made
[36:18] Speaker 2: it a lot worse? And then how long might he
[36:21] Speaker 2: be sidelined for?
[36:22] Speaker 3: You know, in hindsight, I think we can pretty objectively
[36:25] Speaker 3: say it was risky because he did reactivate it in, uh,
[36:28] Speaker 3: in that sense, the real concern here, which he has
[36:32] Speaker 3: avoided so far is an Achilles tear. And that is
[36:36] Speaker 3: why these are usually several week type of injuries. Now,
[36:39] Speaker 3: Mike Evans, if you kind of plug in his practice
[36:42] Speaker 3: participation data over the years and his correlation with game
[36:47] Speaker 3: play and production, is on that far outlier level. I
[36:53] Speaker 3: would say there's still some outside chance he would play
[36:56] Speaker 3: this week. John Lynch said it was a little bit
[37:00] Speaker 3: of a confusing statement, but he wouldn't rule him out, basically,
[37:03] Speaker 3: is what he said. With that in mind, if he
[37:07] Speaker 3: is playing, there's a really high risk that he aggravates
[37:09] Speaker 3: it again. If I'm managing this or guiding him, I
[37:14] Speaker 3: would say maybe sit week seven, you're 6-0, and get
[37:18] Speaker 3: the bye week eight and at best come back week nine.
[37:22] Speaker 3: But really it's hard to tell with Mike Evans because
[37:25] Speaker 3: he's probably going to be DNP today, maybe even tomorrow
[37:29] Speaker 3: and then still be not ruled out. So. It makes
[37:32] Speaker 3: life confusing because he's just such an outlier.
[37:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, dude's a dog. I mean, he just plays through
[37:39] Speaker 1: like anything. It's crazy.
[37:41] Speaker 2: So the risk and the fear is that this Achilles tendonitis,
[37:45] Speaker 2: I would assume it provides a higher likelihood that someone
[37:48] Speaker 2: would tear their Achilles.
[37:50] Speaker 1: Is that true?
[37:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the biggest risk. The less significant but still
[37:57] Speaker 3: notable risk is of just continuing to aggravate it. If
[38:01] Speaker 3: you think about it, it's an overuse type of injury.
[38:04] Speaker 3: And the more you use it, the more you're kind
[38:05] Speaker 3: of poking on that bruise. So it just won't go away.
[38:08] Speaker 3: It'll last longer. And that, that may be the reason
[38:11] Speaker 3: to shut it down in some cases. And that's what
[38:13] Speaker 3: we saw with CMC, but he was also reportedly dealing
[38:16] Speaker 3: with it bilaterally on both legs. So the difference I
[38:20] Speaker 3: think is significant there. Again, this is one of those
[38:22] Speaker 3: that's a little hard to predict, but I would say my,
[38:25] Speaker 3: my gut is you sit him this week, but it's
[38:28] Speaker 3: Mike Evans. So he has shocked me before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[38:32] Speaker 2: I mean, he's one of those players too, like you said,
[38:34] Speaker 2: where it's like he doesn't practice and it doesn't matter.
[38:36] Speaker 2: You know, he still just ends up playing. Devante Adams
[38:41] Speaker 2: had that horrible hammy injury. Are you thinking, I know
[38:44] Speaker 2: they gave that six to 10 week timeline. Are you
[38:47] Speaker 2: more on the 10 side than the six side?
[38:50] Speaker 3: I am. They called it a rupture and he, it
[38:53] Speaker 3: stopped him like in his tracks and yeah. Uh, the, uh,
[38:57] Speaker 3: the concern is usually when it's the high, high grade,
[39:00] Speaker 3: you're looking at more like an eight to 12 week average.
[39:04] Speaker 3: So they call it six to 10. I would say
[39:06] Speaker 3: eight to 10 would be my suspicion there.
[39:08] Speaker 2: And then Terrence Ferguson in that same off. I mean,
[39:10] Speaker 2: my gosh, I, I have a lot of Terrence Ferguson bags.
[39:14] Speaker 2: I was very excited about the possibility of him coming
[39:16] Speaker 2: back next week. And then Sean McVay, when the injury
[39:20] Speaker 2: first happened, he was like, this is going to be
[39:22] Speaker 2: just a short, you know, the.
[39:23] Speaker 1: Four week IR stint for him. And then he's going
[39:25] Speaker 1: to be able to come back.
[39:26] Speaker 2: And then there was a report from Schefter that dropped
[39:28] Speaker 2: after everyone was did all their waiver columns and and
[39:32] Speaker 2: podcasts and stuff myself included saying that Ferguson would not
[39:35] Speaker 2: be back uh next week more than likely where are
[39:39] Speaker 2: we at with Ferguson is this is this uh are
[39:41] Speaker 2: we gonna be waiting for another three or four weeks
[39:42] Speaker 2: for him Yeah.
[39:44] Speaker 3: The concern here is that the kind of high severity,
[39:47] Speaker 3: high ankles are usually in the six week range. Four
[39:50] Speaker 3: to six is kind of what I usually expect. It
[39:54] Speaker 3: happened in week three. So you would expect to see
[39:57] Speaker 3: at least some movement on this around the week nine
[40:00] Speaker 3: or 10 timeline. It doesn't sound like it's imminent this
[40:05] Speaker 3: week that they would activate them or bring them back
[40:06] Speaker 3: to practice. And I would expect at least some update
[40:10] Speaker 3: on that by week nine. And most players would at
[40:13] Speaker 3: least start returning to practice in some degree.
[40:16] Speaker 2: It's like this, everything works so well for Terrence Ferguson.
[40:19] Speaker 2: Like everything just fell into place. And then he, I mean,
[40:21] Speaker 2: he had to have this injury when it was just
[40:24] Speaker 2: like the perfect scenario for him.
[40:26] Speaker 1: What about Terry McLaurin?
[40:27] Speaker 2: Obviously he's done, but what about like the 2027 recovery and,
[40:31] Speaker 2: you know, all the stuff that we just talked about,
[40:33] Speaker 2: about older players and them coming back from injury?
[40:36] Speaker 3: Yeah. So with Terry McLaurin, you know, you do look
[40:38] Speaker 3: at age as a real factor. The other thing is
[40:40] Speaker 3: that Patellar tendon rupture does historically tend to be one
[40:45] Speaker 3: of the more impactful injuries in terms of strength limitations
[40:49] Speaker 3: when players come back. Now, we're accelerating a lot of
[40:52] Speaker 3: the returns with modified surgical techniques compared to what players
[40:57] Speaker 3: were having probably 10 years ago when most of the
[41:01] Speaker 3: data started to really accumulate. It's hard for me to
[41:06] Speaker 3: say definitively, but my suspicion is that week one is
[41:09] Speaker 3: a very realistic target. But most players would see a
[41:11] Speaker 3: pretty notable production dip somewhere in that 20% range for
[41:15] Speaker 3: the first half of the year at least because that's
[41:18] Speaker 3: about the 12-month timeline where you would expect his strength
[41:20] Speaker 3: to really start regaining.
[41:22] Speaker 2: Have you noticed that with a lot of your data
[41:24] Speaker 2: that players are returning quicker or like, like the timelines
[41:29] Speaker 2: are shifting and that's something that you're trying to account for?
[41:31] Speaker 2: Like the one that pops into mind for me that
[41:33] Speaker 2: wasn't on my list that probably should have been a
[41:35] Speaker 2: Zach Charbonnet who, you know, obviously like, you know, he
[41:38] Speaker 2: had the injury in January, whatever. And then he didn't
[41:41] Speaker 2: have surgery, I believe until February. So my other question
[41:44] Speaker 2: would be like, do you count like when you're counting timeline,
[41:47] Speaker 2: are you looking at when the surgery happened? But then
[41:49] Speaker 2: the followup to that, the more important piece is, is
[41:53] Speaker 2: when a player seemingly is coming back quickly, is that
[41:56] Speaker 2: something that you're just like starting to see more and
[41:58] Speaker 2: more that you just like see through the years? Because
[42:00] Speaker 2: obviously medicine is just getting better and better.
[42:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's kind of a combo approach to it. One, yeah,
[42:07] Speaker 3: usually you do count it from the surgical date because
[42:09] Speaker 3: that's when the recovery really starts in most cases. The
[42:13] Speaker 3: other is that I think the biggest jump forward in
[42:16] Speaker 3: the past few years has been Achilles. And that you've
[42:20] Speaker 3: seen players, Cam Akers came back as early as five months.
[42:25] Speaker 3: Until George Kittle this year, we haven't really seen anybody
[42:29] Speaker 3: just crush it off of the Achilles. And he's a
[42:32] Speaker 3: little bit of an outlier that way. With that being said,
[42:35] Speaker 3: you know, sometimes I think back to, okay, is there
[42:37] Speaker 3: some change in surgical technique that's happened in the past
[42:41] Speaker 3: several years? With ACLs, which you bring up, there's kind
[42:44] Speaker 3: of an augmentation procedure that a lot of us have adopted,
[42:47] Speaker 3: especially in higher level athletes. And that can sort of
[42:51] Speaker 3: basically you, you can, what we call internally brace the
[42:55] Speaker 3: ACL or, uh, sometimes do an augmentation with incision on
[42:59] Speaker 3: the outside of the knee. And, uh, they, they do
[43:02] Speaker 3: find that athletes feel more confident in the knee early
[43:06] Speaker 3: on in the, uh, kind of post-operative setting. And these
[43:09] Speaker 3: weren't really being done probably even as recently as five,
[43:12] Speaker 3: 10 years ago. So like that one specifically, I think
[43:16] Speaker 3: since 2022 really gained steam. And I do think that,
[43:22] Speaker 3: you know, these augmentations are what's leading to the faster recoveries.
[43:26] Speaker 3: So I try to relate it to a specific change
[43:29] Speaker 3: that I can kind of point to and explain it with,
[43:32] Speaker 3: but sometimes, you know, you, you also see the rehab
[43:35] Speaker 3: side of it getting better and more advanced. And, and
[43:37] Speaker 3: that's the other aspect that's hard to, it's hard to
[43:40] Speaker 3: kind of normalize. So you kind of use the more
[43:41] Speaker 3: recent data preferentially, but but I don't think we have
[43:46] Speaker 3: a good way to fully quantify that. Yeah.
[43:48] Speaker 2: And since we're talking about Charbonnet, I guess I should ask, like,
[43:51] Speaker 2: do you foresee him like being able to see a normal,
[43:54] Speaker 2: like what's that ramp up going to look like for him?
[43:56] Speaker 3: Yeah. The average running back is going to see about
[43:58] Speaker 3: a four week ramp up in their touches. It's not
[44:01] Speaker 3: totally clear in that specific backfield, like what is their
[44:03] Speaker 3: intended role and usage for him, but it may be
[44:06] Speaker 3: a high yield backfield. So I think it's a smart
[44:09] Speaker 3: move to invest in Charbonnet. Most running backs, he's at
[44:12] Speaker 3: eight months right now, which is pretty early. the overall
[44:16] Speaker 3: average for running backs is about 10 months. We know
[44:19] Speaker 3: that you have an increased re-injury risk any time before
[44:22] Speaker 3: nine months. All of these factors, I think, should be considered.
[44:26] Speaker 3: With that being said, over the course of the next
[44:29] Speaker 3: four weeks, on average, he would basically be ramped up.
[44:34] Speaker 3: If he starts at the typical 80% to 85% efficiency,
[44:38] Speaker 3: that should rise pretty quickly, usually about six weeks to
[44:41] Speaker 3: rise up to the close to 90% level. So I
[44:45] Speaker 3: think the other aspect to it that we don't fully know,
[44:48] Speaker 3: but my suspicion is that this was a clean ACL
[44:51] Speaker 3: by reports, meaning the meniscus, which is kind of that
[44:55] Speaker 3: shock absorber, was not also damaged. And that we've seen
[44:58] Speaker 3: players like Christian Watson last year come back and crush
[45:01] Speaker 3: it pretty fast. So I think that is also a
[45:05] Speaker 3: key factor in deciding how you're going to play it.
[45:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, he's definitely not hard to
[45:12] Speaker 2: obtain right now, mostly just because I don't think expectations
[45:16] Speaker 2: are super high.
[45:17] Speaker 1: So that's really good to know. Let's talk about a
[45:18] Speaker 1: couple of quarterbacks.
[45:19] Speaker 2: So Baker Mayfield sounds like he's probably back this week.
[45:22] Speaker 2: Should we expect a performance dip from this Buccaneers? I mean,
[45:26] Speaker 2: my gosh, they were already pretty bad before the injury happened.
[45:28] Speaker 2: But should we expect a dip at all with Baker back?
[45:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a good question in the sense
[45:35] Speaker 3: that he's wearing this new glove at least at practice.
[45:40] Speaker 3: But he was able to log a full practice. So
[45:41] Speaker 3: it tells you he was holding the ball well enough
[45:44] Speaker 3: to at least throw it. My concern is not so
[45:47] Speaker 3: much how he looks initially. Initially, I think he will
[45:49] Speaker 3: look pretty solid. But the concern is if he gets
[45:52] Speaker 3: hit on that thumb, if he falls on it, that
[45:56] Speaker 3: is where you may see a re-aggravation. And he tends
[45:58] Speaker 3: to kind of play through everything. And we often don't
[46:01] Speaker 3: see the reports saying like what his injury was, but
[46:05] Speaker 3: he just And I think you would see that affect
[46:10] Speaker 3: his play if he were to re-aggravate it. And I
[46:12] Speaker 3: also worry a little bit that he's coming back into
[46:17] Speaker 3: the season with possibly Emeka Ibuka on the sideline. So
[46:23] Speaker 3: the overall outlook here is kind of mixed with limited optimism,
[46:28] Speaker 3: I would say. I think initially he'll look good, though.
[46:30] Speaker 2: And then Lamar Jackson's the other one where obviously we
[46:34] Speaker 2: saw him banged up last season and– It's just been
[46:37] Speaker 2: like a roller coaster with him.
[46:39] Speaker 1: So where are you at with Lamar?
[46:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, the video on Lamar from the actual game footage
[46:43] Speaker 3: looked like kind of a mild medial low or a
[46:47] Speaker 3: mild high ankle type mechanism. And average on that's about
[46:51] Speaker 3: two weeks. So you would expect this week would be
[46:53] Speaker 3: a good target for him. Yesterday, he logged a limited practice.
[46:57] Speaker 3: And if quarterbacks who log even just three limited practices
[47:01] Speaker 3: with an ankle designation almost always play, the concern– was
[47:06] Speaker 3: some reporting, which I'm not sure how accurate it was,
[47:09] Speaker 3: that he was walking with a noticeable limp after practice yesterday.
[47:12] Speaker 3: But I did see some video that he's out there
[47:14] Speaker 3: throwing today. So again, if he's on track to log
[47:17] Speaker 3: limited practices even, I would expect him kind of to
[47:20] Speaker 3: be a plug and play. His elusiveness may not be
[47:23] Speaker 3: quite what we're used to. So you may not see
[47:27] Speaker 3: as much of that sort of scramble ability, but I
[47:30] Speaker 3: think even from the pocket, he's better than Huntley. So
[47:33] Speaker 3: they'll probably try to play him.
[47:34] Speaker 1: Right yeah i also like if i'm lamar i'd be walking.
[47:37] Speaker 2: Around with a limp just to mess with people you
[47:39] Speaker 2: know like just just just to screw with with the
[47:41] Speaker 2: reporting and stuff and then the last one is jeremiah
[47:44] Speaker 2: love where we got a report right before we hopped
[47:46] Speaker 2: on here that he's likely not going to play this
[47:48] Speaker 2: week this one seems like it like it seems like
[47:51] Speaker 2: it came kind of out of nowhere because yeah we
[47:53] Speaker 2: i think it was the giants game where like he
[47:55] Speaker 2: didn't play that much during the second half and stuff
[47:57] Speaker 2: and maybe that's when it all happened then there was
[47:59] Speaker 2: also like the The commentary from him afterwards, it almost
[48:03] Speaker 2: sounded like it was just as much like a between
[48:05] Speaker 2: the ears thing where he was kind of just getting
[48:07] Speaker 2: used to the NFL game. And it's something that I
[48:10] Speaker 2: don't think we think enough about with rookies that they're
[48:14] Speaker 2: doing a lot of stuff in the wintertime, you know,
[48:17] Speaker 2: like for draft prep and stuff. So there's like a
[48:19] Speaker 2: lot of Just stuff going on with their body then.
[48:22] Speaker 2: And then obviously they have a longer season when they
[48:24] Speaker 2: get to the NFL. And so at first I took
[48:27] Speaker 2: it as like, oh, he's just going through some stuff
[48:29] Speaker 2: because it's really difficult as a rookie, especially a high
[48:32] Speaker 2: end rookie in the NFL to step in and go
[48:34] Speaker 2: through all of this.
[48:35] Speaker 1: But it sounds like that this is a bigger deal.
[48:37] Speaker 2: Is this something that stems from the issue from the
[48:40] Speaker 2: preseason with him, do you think?
[48:41] Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, the preseason looked like a pretty real
[48:44] Speaker 3: high ankle and he was hustling back from that, but
[48:48] Speaker 3: probably with some initial limitations based on how they used
[48:51] Speaker 3: him early on. Now that was on the other side though.
[48:54] Speaker 3: So this was, it's hard to know it did some
[48:57] Speaker 3: compensation or inability to fully protect himself lead to then
[49:01] Speaker 3: this injury. I would say the chances that he comes
[49:05] Speaker 3: back next week are pretty solid, but the data would
[49:08] Speaker 3: slightly favor it being the following week nine. The concern
[49:11] Speaker 3: though is usage and especially given the up and down
[49:15] Speaker 3: season that he's had with injuries now on both ankles,
[49:18] Speaker 3: you would think that the usage would probably have to
[49:22] Speaker 3: ramp up. And the other kind of concerning factor here
[49:26] Speaker 3: is that the reports were that he was going to
[49:28] Speaker 3: test out the ankle just running on Tuesday and running
[49:32] Speaker 3: in a straight line usually is not super affected by
[49:35] Speaker 3: the high ankle. Uh, whereas it's that cutting pivoting motion,
[49:39] Speaker 3: which even the coach commented that it wasn't quite normal
[49:42] Speaker 3: for him. So I think this is pretty real. I
[49:45] Speaker 3: think he tried to kind of play through everything and
[49:48] Speaker 3: they saw the effects of that. In my eyes, I
[49:50] Speaker 3: don't know if you want to waste his best touches
[49:52] Speaker 3: on this season for the Cardinals, but you know, the,
[49:56] Speaker 3: I think NFL coaches probably think differently than you and
[50:00] Speaker 3: I do from the outside. But yeah, I think there's
[50:04] Speaker 3: some pretty real risk here. Because of the preseason high ankle,
[50:07] Speaker 3: I wasn't really in on Jeremiah Love at cost. But
[50:10] Speaker 3: the concern now is this probably will be a slow
[50:14] Speaker 3: ramp up even when he comes back.
[50:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough.
[50:17] Speaker 2: Are there any players out there that you're worried about
[50:21] Speaker 2: moving forward due to re-injury risk or injury risk in general?
[50:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a few guys who come back
[50:29] Speaker 3: and then they fall off our radar. AJ Brown is
[50:31] Speaker 3: among them. Caleb Williams, to some degree, is kind of
[50:35] Speaker 3: up there. The other one who's not quite back yet
[50:39] Speaker 3: is Tyler Warren because he's got a re-aggravated groin strain,
[50:43] Speaker 3: and that tends to have a pretty significant re-aggravation risk.
[50:48] Speaker 3: The other two guys that kind of pop onto my
[50:50] Speaker 3: list who I don't mean to sound alarms when there's
[50:54] Speaker 3: not any warranted, but Devontae Smith and Zay Flowers, both
[50:58] Speaker 3: guys who have been dealing with re-aggravated hamstrings from preseason injuries.
[51:02] Speaker 3: And they're back. They're playing well. I don't expect any
[51:05] Speaker 3: short-term issues. But just the data would say that these
[51:07] Speaker 3: guys may see a re-aggravation in the season. And that
[51:11] Speaker 3: risk is upwards of 20%. So those are guys that
[51:14] Speaker 3: are on my radar as probably higher risk than the
[51:17] Speaker 3: public thinks. Yeah.
[51:18] Speaker 2: And I want to be clear, too, going back to
[51:20] Speaker 2: the original conversation that we had, that you're giving odds
[51:23] Speaker 2: and probabilities and such. This isn't like a, this will happen.
[51:26] Speaker 2: This is just a, this is what generally the trend is.
[51:29] Speaker 2: And this is where things go whenever these things occur.
[51:32] Speaker 1: It's really, really helpful.
[51:33] Speaker 2: We as a population, we just need to think more
[51:38] Speaker 2: in these probabilistic ways as opposed to in these really
[51:41] Speaker 2: black and white ways.
[51:42] Speaker 1: It's important on many levels.
[51:44] Speaker 2: Well, man, this was awesome. I really appreciate the time.
[51:47] Speaker 2: I really appreciate the insight. Let everyone know where they
[51:50] Speaker 2: can find you, your work, and all the great stuff
[51:51] Speaker 2: that you're doing.
[51:53] Speaker 3: Awesome. Thank you. I'm going to be pretty heavily involved
[51:56] Speaker 3: with Rotowire over the foreseeable future. We just started that partnership.
[52:03] Speaker 3: We'll be on several of their podcasts and XM radio.
[52:07] Speaker 3: My work is on social media, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube.
[52:11] Speaker 3: If you search up SportsMed Analytics, you'll find it there.
[52:16] Speaker 3: Feel free to holler anytime. This was awesome. Thank you
[52:19] Speaker 3: for having me.
[52:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, man, of course. I love having these conversations. I
[52:23] Speaker 2: think they're really, really important for a lot of reasons
[52:26] Speaker 2: within our little bubble that we live with this fantasy
[52:29] Speaker 2: football world. As usual, everyone, make sure you check out
[52:31] Speaker 2: my stuff over on lateround.com. Sign up for the free newsletter,
[52:34] Speaker 2: subscribe to the podcast, all that stuff. Otherwise, as always,
[52:38] Speaker 2: thanks for tuning in.

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