March is National Athletic Training Month, so this is the perfect time to celebrate the top athletic training staffs across American professional sports leagues, whose contributions helped keep their teams healthier. Despite both football and hockey being contact sports, NFL and NHL athletes generally don't miss games unless truly injured, except regular-season finales when the playoffs are around the corner. With load maintenance sweeping across the NBA and MLB, those athletes wind up with a lot more absences that aren't necessarily the fault of the training staff.
The comparisons below aren't apples-to-apples across leagues, but they highlight which training staffs are doing the best at keeping their players on the field, rink, diamond or court relative to their peers. Training staffs face different challenges depending on which types of athletes they work with, as injury prevalence can vary significantly between sports when it comes to both cumulative injury totals and injury types.
Per the most recently available data from Athlete Game Lost, the most commonly reported NFL player injuries were knee injuries (14.7 percent), followed by hamstring injuries (8.7 percent) and concussions (6.6 percent). With a total of 4,203 injury occurrences in the most recent season tracked by AGL, the NFL had by far the most injuries of any major American sports league. The NBA had the second-most injuries with 1,380, of which 13.1 percent were ankle injuries, 11.2 percent were knee injuries and 4.8 percent were hip injuries.
Next came MLB with 988 injuries. Given the prevalence of pitcher injuries in baseball, it's hardly surprising that elbow (11.9 percent) and shoulder (11.2 percent) were the most common injury types, with hamstring (7.5 percent) being the third-most injured body part. The NHL had the fewest injuries with 951, a number that was certainly kept lower by hockey players' willingness and ability to play through injuries that would sideline most other athletes. The precise nature of NHL injuries is often kept close to the vest by coaches, who like to use the nebulous lower-body and upper-body monikers, which explains why shoulder injuries were the most common injury type at just 2.9 percent.
| Sport | Number of Injuries | Most Common Injury |
| NFL Football | 4,203 | Knee |
| NBA Basketball | 1,380 | Ankle |
| MLB Baseball | 988 | Elbow |
| NHL Hockey | 951 | Shoulder |
NFL Best Training Staffs
Now that we have had a chance to look at the cross-sport comparisons, let's highlight the specific training staffs that have managed to keep injuries lowest for their respective teams based on available metrics. First up, the NFL, using the adjusted games lost (AGL) metric devised by Aaron Schatz, founder of the now-defunct Football Outsiders. AGL attempts to account for both absences and players suiting up at less than full health while weighting absences from starters more heavily.
| Team | Adjusted Games Lost 2023 |
|---|---|
| Rams | 26.4 |
| Raiders | 26.8 |
| Bengals | 28.9 |
| 49ers | 34.5 |
| Falcons | 36.3 |
| Chiefs | 38.1 |
| Saints | 45.6 |
| Jaguars | 49.8 |
| Bears | 50.5 |
| Buccaneers | 51.5 |
| Cowboys | 51.8 |
| Commanders | 54.4 |
| Bills | 57.1 |
| Broncos | 57.7 |
| Vikings | 60.4 |
| Steelers | 61.3 |
| Seahawks | 66.6 |
| Lions | 66.7 |
| Ravens | 71.3 |
| Titans | 75.7 |
| Dolphins | 76.0 |
| Chargers | 76.3 |
| Eagles | 77.1 |
| Packers | 81.1 |
| Giants | 84.4 |
| Colts | 84.6 |
| Jets | 98.8 |
| Cardinals | 100.1 |
| Browns | 108.0 |
| Panthers | 120.6 |
| Patriots | 128.0 |
| Texans | 159.1 |
Kudos to the Rams, Raiders and Bengals training staffs, which limited their teams to the fewest key injuries this past season. Unfortunately for the Bengals, not all starters are created equal, and one of the few players who missed significant time for Cincinnati was star QB Joe Burrow. Three of the five least injured teams made the playoffs, including both teams that played in the Super Bowl, so those training staffs certainly played a hand in their teams' success. While the eight most injured teams actually included two playoff teams, that group also featured four of the six worst records in the NFL, as poor injury luck or training staff underperformance was part of what went wrong for those teams in 2023. On a positive note for the entire league, the average AGL in 2023 was the lowest the NFL has seen in a decade, despite an inordinate amount of injuries to big-name QBs.
NHL Best Training Staffs
The hockey metric used to track injuries below comes from NHL Injury Viz, which also attempts to weigh their significance and is thus a bit convoluted, as it tracks the cumulative cap hit of injured players (CHIP) for the ongoing 2023-24 season. Not only does cap hit not necessarily track with performance, but certain teams like the Lightning and Golden Knights purposely target injured players to facilitate exploiting long-term injured reserve loopholes in the salary cap, as if being in a tax-free state in a hard cap sport wasn't enough of an advantage already. Nonetheless, this metric can help us deliver plaudits to the NHL training staffs that deserve them:
| Team | Cap Hit of Injured Players 2023-24 (in millions of dollars) |
|---|---|
| Oilers | 1.53 |
| Blues | 1.83 |
| Predators | 2.69 |
| Stars | 4.09 |
| Flames | 4.16 |
| Coyotes | 4.26 |
| Jets | 4.28 |
| Bruins | 4.50 |
| Flyers | 4.78 |
| Panthers | 4.80 |
| Penguins | 4.90 |
| Red Wings | 5.26 |
| Canucks | 5.27 |
| Hurricanes | 5.71 |
| Kings | 5.83 |
| Rangers | 5.87 |
| Islanders | 6.46 |
| Senators | 6.64 |
| Kraken | 7.07 |
| Sabres | 7.53 |
| Lightning | 9.21 |
| Canadiens | 9.43 |
| Maple Leafs | 9.52 |
| Wild | 10.55 |
| Blue Jackets | 10.59 |
| Ducks | 10.90 |
| Avalanche | 11.30 |
| Devils | 12.51 |
| Sharks | 13.28 |
| Capitals | 13.48 |
| Blackhawks | 15.32 |
| Golden Knights | 17.17 |
The Oilers, Blues and Predators have been the three healthiest NHL teams by the CHIP metric. Just like in the NFL, having a good training staff that can keep key players healthy leads to team success in the NHL. If the season ended today, seven of the 10 healthiest teams would make the playoffs. Meanwhile, the four worst teams in the standings are all among the eight most injured teams.
MLB Best Training Staffs
Unlike the NFL and NHL metrics, MLB's injury data is unweighted. The data below, courtesy of the Associated Press, tracks injured list (IL) placements and days on the IL from the 2023 season, so short absences for bumps and bruises or load management aren't included.
| Team | Days Spent on Injured List 2023 | Number of IL Placements 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Guardians | 717 | 18 |
| Astros | 840 | 13 |
| Blue Jays | 863 | 21 |
| Phillies | 890 | 20 |
| Orioles | 913 | 20 |
| White Sox | 1,077 | 30 |
| Diamondbacks | 1,117 | 18 |
| Rangers | 1,152 | 25 |
| Mariners | 1,170 | 18 |
| Cardinals | 1,172 | 29 |
| Cubs | 1,209 | 27 |
| Rays | 1,424 | 29 |
| Pirates | 1,498 | 28 |
| Padres | 1,512 | 31 |
| Nationals | 1,530 | 22 |
| Giants | 1,571 | 46 |
| Mets | 1,610 | 28 |
| Marlins | 1,614 | 28 |
| Tigers | 1,637 | 24 |
| Royals | 1,661 | 28 |
| Brewers | 1,700 | 32 |
| Braves | 1,707 | 30 |
| Athletics | 1,746 | 31 |
| Red Sox | 1,792 | 31 |
| Twins | 1,809 | 39 |
| Rockies | 1,840 | 31 |
| Reds | 1,921 | 38 |
| Yankees | 2,158 | 38 |
| Angels | 2,346 | 42 |
| Dodgers | 2,465 | 33 |
The training staffs in Cleveland, Houston and Toronto excelled at keeping their players on the diamond last season. Perhaps the two LA baseball teams should see if the Rams' medical staff is as good at treating elbows and shoulders as they are knees and hamstrings, as the city with the least-injured NFL team also had the two most injured MLB teams in 2023. As with other sports, effective training staffs contributed to MLB team success while injuries hampered it. Six of the eight healthiest teams made the postseason, and that list included both World Series participants. Of the five most injured teams, only the Dodgers made the postseason, and the Yankees' plethora of injuries contributed to New York missing the playoff for the first time since 2016.
NBA Best Training Staffs
Unfortunately, aggregate injury data for the ongoing NBA season wasn't immediately available, so the top-performing NBA staffs this season won't get the recognition they deserve. Per Man Games Lost NBA, the teams with the fewest missed games at this time last season were the Kings, Knicks, Hawks, 76ers and Rockets. Sacramento's 16-year playoff drought was snapped last season due in no small part to the contributions of the Kings' outstanding training staff. Unfortunately, the injury luck has bounced the other way for the Knicks this season, and the 76ers regressed to their all-too-familiar state of having to play without oft-injured star Joel Embiid, who suffered a knee injury in late January.
