Do you have friends who tell you not to use injuries as an excuse while discussing the San Francisco 49ers' disappointing 2020 campaign, which resulted in just six wins? You may want to send them this article from Football Outsiders to show them exactly how much injuries devastated the Niners' roster this past season.
Scott Spratt broke down how many total games were lost for each NFL team, and it won't come as a surprise to The Faithful that the 49ers led the league by a significant margin, both including games missed due to COVID-19 and not including them.
San Francisco's players missed a total of 161.6 adjusted games, without COVID-19, and five more, including COVID-19. The next-highest number was 126.1, which the Philadelphia Eagles owned.
What are adjusted games lost? Football Outsiders factors in players who played with injuries, even if those injuries meant the player was at something less than 100 percent. It factors in games missed entirely and adjusted rates for those who play despite appearing on injury reports.
We already knew that the 49ers were the most injury-ravaged roster from this past season. What you may not know is that they were historically battered. Kyle Shanahan's squad endured the second-highest adjusted games lost since 2001, when Football Outsiders started tracking the data. Only the 2016 Chicago Bears had more with 171.6.
This is nothing new for the 49ers, though. The team has finished among the top 12 in adjusted games lost for eight consecutive seasons.
"Perhaps they need a better medical staff?" asks Spratt. "Washington (seven years) is the only other team with a bottom-12 streak longer than the Eagles' current streak of three years."
Spratt also breaks it down by offense and defense. San Francisco's offense had 78.7 adjusted games lost, which ranks as the third-most in the NFL. Its defense had 87.9 adjusted games lost, which was the most in the league. That includes the five combined games lost due to COVID-19.