Stephen Holder

stephen.holder@indystar.com

INDIANAPOLIS – There are times when reality can be so inconceivable that it begins to seem that the universe is conspiring against you.

As the Indianapolis Colts bemoan their startlingly long injury list, they could be forgiven for wondering whether fate is not their friend.

Recently, it’s been one frustrating, implausible injury after another. A sampling:

>> Safety Clayton Geathers, simply working out to prepare for training camp, suffers a broken foot.

>> Defensive end Kendall Langford, who has never missed a game in his nine seasons, develops a knee problem in training camp; surgery kept him out a month.

>> Cornerback Darius Butler, in his first game back from a weekslong ankle injury, grabs an interception in Denver a week ago, makes a beeline toward the end zone, then crashes to the turf in pain after suffering a hamstring strain.

Last week, 16 Colts made an appearance on the injury report – nearly one-third of the players on the active roster.

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That’s more than enough to beg a perplexing question: What are the Colts doing about this?

If you only knew.

The Colts have gone to great lengths to prevent exactly the kind of injury toll they're experiencing. They’ve been one of the NFL’s most-injured teams in recent seasons, and they’ve spent an untold amount of money and undertaken many long hours of effort to try to reverse the trend.

The team has attempted everything from expanding and restructuring its strength and conditioning staff to hiring a full-time dietitian and eliminating unhealthy food from its facility. The Colts have even created “sleep areas” and started a sleep assistance program for players to promote wellness. These are just a few examples of the team’s many efforts in this area.

Yet the injuries keep coming.

“You go back and look at all of them,” coach Chuck Pagano said, frustration evident in his voice, “(but) when you go over the middle and you get whacked on the shoulder by a really good defensive back and something happens, that’s football. I don’t care what you are eating. We can go back to pizza, wings and cheeseburgers. When you get jacked up, that’s what happens. You go look at it and overanalyze it.”

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As it turns out, explaining this is rather simple.

“It’s human nature to see a spike in injuries and worry if it’s a trend,” said Dr. Andrew Cosgarea, director of sports medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. “And the consequences in the NFL are huge. Everything from nutrition to strength and conditioning should be analyzed. But sometimes there’s just no smoking gun. If you look at it over time, there’s almost always an evening out.

“It really is just bad luck.”

In the case of the Colts, really bad luck.

Since 2012, the Colts have suffered an unusually high number of key injuries. According to analysis by mangameslost.com, the Colts have consistently ranked among the hardest-hit teams in football in the site’s Injury Impact to Team Weighted Career Approximate Value. (The website factors players' previous production into its rankings so an injury to a backup lineman counts less than one to the quarterback.) The Colts were the 15th-most injured team in 2015, but were in the bottom 10 from 2012-14. Only the Patriots have suffered worse from injuries between 2012-16.

Certain findings might suggest problems with a team’s habits.

For example, according to Cosgarea, a recurrence of one particular type of injury could be telling. Or, maybe players are suffering a disproportionate number of injuries in the weight room, which would point to possible overtraining. A rash of turf-related injuries would turn attention to a team’s playing surface.

But none of those factors appears to be present in the Colts’ situation, leaving them devoid of answers. In fact, the freakish nature of some of the injuries defies explanation.

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Geathers, for example, was doing a routine workout while preparing for camp.

“I was literally just working out,” he said. “It’s just one of those things.”

His injury put him on the shelf for about six weeks, causing him to miss all of training camp, the preseason and the regular-season opener.

The secondary has been particularly hard hit, with Geathers, Butler, Pro Bowl cornerback Vontae Davis, rookie safety T.J. Green and cornerback Patrick Robinson all missing games with injuries — and it’s only Week 3. In the season opener Sept. 11, just one of the team's top five defensive backs — safety Mike Adams — finished the game.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, not at one position group,” Davis said.

Ironically, the defensive backfield includes some of the players on the team most renowned for their offseason preparation, including Davis. But when he leaped into the air to make a play in practice last month, that didn’t stop his ankle from giving way and rolling inward, causing a severe sprain.

“For the guys that are dealing with these injuries,” linebacker D’Qwell Jackson said, “it’s not that they aren’t taking care of their bodies.”

Still, the Colts have struggled to cope with the losses. Defensive coordinator Ted Monachino has been adapting for weeks now, still unable to field his defense as an intact unit. For the past several weeks, Monachino has been playing backups and newly signed players in key spots, something that has caused him to condense the breadth of his play calling. Some of his primary players are nearing their returns, and the effects are already obvious.

“Now it opens up some other areas of the playbook, which has been helpful,” Monachino said. “It allowed us to game plan a little differently this week… This is a game about Jimmys and Joes and not X’s and O’s.”

The offense hasn’t escaped this unforgiving injury bug, either. Receiver Donte Moncrief is expected to miss four to six weeks with a shoulder injury, Pagano said. And none other than franchise quarterback Andrew Luck missed practice Wednesday with a sore shoulder, the first time he’s missed a practice since his season-ending kidney injury last November.

“It’s weird,” Geathers said. “Maybe somebody has it out for us.”

Then again, it should be noted that the Colts aren’t alone here. Take, for instance, their opponents on Sunday, the San Diego Chargers. They have a staggering 14 players on injured reserve, including No. 1 wide receiver Keenan Allen and running back Danny Woodhead.

“To say it’s not tough would be not being honest with you,” quarterback Phillip Rivers said.

And try walking a mile in the shoes of the Minnesota Vikings, who lost quarterback Teddy Bridgewater to a horrible knee injury and could lose All-Pro running back Adrian Peterson for the season after a torn meniscus.

Rest assured, those teams, like the Colts, took great pains to prevent the very injuries that are now significantly undermining their team’s chances. How could they not? The stakes are simply too high.

“The amount you invest in a high-profile player is incredible,” said Cosgarea, who formerly was on the Baltimore Orioles’ medical staff. “All it takes is one high-profile injury to a key player and the season could be over.”

Along those lines, Pagano managed to find a silver lining in all of this. Maybe, just maybe, the efforts undertaken by the team are actually having an effect.

“We haven’t had five or six season-ending ACLs or Achilles (tendon injuries),” he said, with a hint of optimism.

But that optimism is blunted by football’s harsh reality.

“When a guy goes up in practice and comes down wrong and gets an ankle (injury)… I don’t know what diet, salad, greens and shakes are going to do for that,” Pagano said. “We are doing the right thing. Don’t get me wrong. (But) football is football, it’s a physical damn game and I think we all know that.”

Follow IndyStar reporter Stephen Holder on Twitter: @HolderStephen.

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