The Most Injured NFL Teams in 2024

We're continuing our series of digging through NFL data in an attempt to identify key takeaways to learn lessons moving forward. After looking at teams with the most severe decline in second half win percentage, we'll turn our focus to injuries. To do so, we used injury data found on Pro Football Reference to determine which team lost the most games to injury this season. 
Below were the 10 most injured teams from the 2024-25 season, sorted by number of games missed. 

Now, let's turn to some takeaways:

Performance Relative to Preseason Expectation 

Our first measure of impact will be comparing these teams to their win total projection at the beginning of the season. Interestingly, of the 10 teams listed above, five overperformed preseason expectations (DET, PIT, HOU, TB, DAL) and the remaining underperformed. The median performance was 0.5 wins below expectation. 

That suggests that injuries didn't have much impact on these team's regular season outcomes. The story changed in the postseason, however. Of the 10 teams, five qualified for the postseason but none advanced past the divisional round; including the Lions, who were the No. 1 seed in the NFC. 

There are a few other angles to look at the data that point in a similar direction. Two of the most surprising teams this season were Washington and Denver. Denver finished with the fewest games lost to injury in the league (95), while Washington finished with the fifth-fewest (112). Of the four teams that reached their respective conference championships, none finished with more than 140 games lost due to injury. 

Severity of Injury 

Severity of an injury is a subjective inquiry, but for the purposes of this article, I divided the total number of games missed by the total number of injuries suffered by a team. This appeared to be less impactful to a team's overall success than the number of overall games missed. For example, the average Chief missed 10 games due to injury. 

This makes sense when looking for specific examples, as each of Rashee Rice (knee), Isiah Pacheco (foot), and Marquise Brown (shoulder) were absent for long stretches of the season. Yet, they still managed to reach the Super Bowl. Other teams with long average length of injuries included the Rams (6.48), Bengals (6.2), Steelers (6.03) and Lions (5.77). 

Who was Injured? 

Determining the value of a player to a team is even more subjective, and there isn't a particularly easy way to measure that equally across position by using numbers. However, we do know that the quarterback is the most important player on the field. Referring back to the 10 most injured teams, five missed their starting quarterback for multiple games. 

Relative to preseason expectation, the Browns, Cowboys, 49ers and Titans were the most underperforming teams by losing around three to five more games than expected. Of that group, the Browns, Cowboys and Titans all missed their starting quarterback for multiple games. Meanwhile, the 49ers were without key playmakers such as Christian McCaffrey (knee/Achilles), Brandon Aiyuk (knee) and Trent Williams (ankle) for long stretches. 

Looking at the same data from a positive angle also supports the same conclusion. The Lions, Buccaneers and Chargers were the most overperforming teams from our sample. Those team's respective starting quarterbacks did not miss any significant period of time. In fact, neither QB Jared Goff nor QB Baker Mayfield appeared on the injury report at any point in the season. Meanwhile, QB Justin Herbert did not miss any games and did not appear on the injury report at any point after Week 4.