Inside The Vikings

How Sports Science Has Helped the Vikings Be One of the NFL's Healthiest Teams

Injuries are hitting the league hard. The Vikings have mostly avoided them so far (knock on wood).

Will Ragatz

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I'd like to preface this by saying jinxes don't exist. They aren't real. They aren't a thing. Got it?

With that out of the way, a simple observation: the Vikings have been one of the healthiest teams in the NFL in 2022, and it's a big reason why they're off to an incredible 5-1 start under Kevin O'Connell.

Because of the physical nature of football, injuries are a part of every season in this league. They seem to be hitting especially hard this year, and Week 7 saw some devastating losses across the league. Breece Hall, Alijah Vera-Tucker, and J.C. Jackson all saw their seasons come to an end with major injuries, while Mike Williams, D.K. Metcalf, Evan Neal, and a few others will miss some time. 

Players already out for long periods of time (many for the rest of the season) include T.J. Watt, Trey Lance, Rashaad Penny, Elijah Mitchell, Taylor Lewan, Jamal Adams, Rashawn Slater, Javonte Williams, Marquise Brown, Kyle Fuller, Tyron Smith, Garrett Bolles, Tracy Walker III, Sterling Shepard...the list goes on and on.

The Vikings, on the other hand, have mostly avoided major injuries thus far. Rookie safety Lewis Cine suffered a brutal season-ending leg injury on special teams in the London game, but that's the biggest one. Irv Smith Jr. and Andrew Booth Jr. have dealt with minor injuries and Harrison Smith missed a game with a concussion. Other than that, the Vikings' only injuries have been to depth players like Bisi Johnson, Ben Ellefson, Ty Chandler, and Kenny Willekes.

Heading into Week 7, only the Eagles were healthier than the Vikings, according to this "Banged Up Score" metric from FOX NFL injury analyst Dr. Matt Provencher, which "quantifies how injuries affect the overall team position and player performance on a scale of 1-100."

So, why have the Vikings been able to stay so healthy? Part of it, obviously, is luck. Injuries are unpredictable, random, and often unavoidable.

But there's more to it than that. This offseason, the Vikings parted ways with longtime athletic trainer Eric Sugarman. In March, they hired Tyler Williams away from the Rams to be their executive director of player health and performance. During his time with the Rams, Williams "led the cutting-edge sports science efforts...that played a huge role in the success there," O'Connell said in a statement when the hire was announced.

From 2017 to 2021, the Rams ranked in the top five in fewest Adjusted Games Lost four times. AGL is a Football Outsiders metric that "accounts for both absent players and those playing at less than 100 percent" and "gives more weight to injuries to expected starters and situational players than to expected backups." In 2019, the one season in the last five where the Rams were outside the top five, they were tenth.

A month after hiring Williams, the Vikings hired Uriah Myrie as their head athletic trainer. They also added Dan Ridenour as their sports science coordinator. The Vikings leaned into sports science, and it appears to be working.

Seemingly every week, O'Connell gives shoutouts to Williams and Myrie for their contributions to the season. Going back to this offseason and training camp, the Vikings went light on physical, full-speed practices in an effort to have everyone healthy for the start of the season. The vast majority of their starters didn't play at all in the preseason.

The result has been a starting lineup that has almost entirely avoided injuries, despite having plenty of aging veterans and players — such as Dalvin Cook, Za'Darius Smith, and Danielle Hunter — with prior injury histories.

Sports science has factored into everything the Vikings do: how they conduct practices, strength and conditioning, recovery, nutrition, sleep, and more. When they traveled to London in Week 4, Williams made the decision to have the team go overseas for a shorter period of time and avoid fully acclimating to the different time zone. From a sleep and preparation standpoint, everything was planned out down to the minor details.

When the Vikings went to Miami in Week 6, Williams led a week-long hydration program to prepare players for the intense heat. The Vikings also made their own special accommodations on the visitor's sideline, including air-conditioned benches and shading, helping them overcome a major temperature difference compared to the Dolphins' sideline in their fourth consecutive victory.

There's only so much sports science can do to help minimize injuries and maximize player performance. But the Vikings are clearly committed to doing everything they can to give themselves any kind of advantages. From studying situational football every week to emphasizing the importance of special teams, the Vikings' performance on the margins is legitimately a major reason why they're 5-1. Sports science, and the extent to which it has helped keep them healthy, is just another example of that.

So although the Vikings will undoubtedly deal with injuries over the final 11 weeks of the regular season — and potentially major ones — it's not just random luck that has kept them healthy so far. Williams, Myrie, the strength and conditioning staff, and the entire medical staff deserve a lot of credit for the work they've done and will continue to do.

Thanks for reading. Make sure to bookmark this site and check back daily for the latest Vikings news and analysis all offseason long. Also, follow me on Twitter and feel free to ask me any questions on there.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

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