An Injury Expert Tells Us Which Comebacks Are Legit (and Which Aren't)

**Dave Kluge** (0:11)
Training camps are open, and we are getting more information on injuries now than we have at any point this off season. Injuries are one of the worst parts about fantasy football, but I'm here to make them not so scary. I'm joined by Adam Hutchison, our injury expert over here at Footballguys. We're going to talk about players dealing with injuries right now in training camp, players who are coming back from injuries, and some players who got injured a couple of years ago that maybe you want to draft this year that could rebound. Adam, we've got to start with Alec Pearce right now. We've heard some conflicting reports. Did he get a PRP injection? Did he not get a PRP injection? I don't know if anybody really knows here, but we do know that ankle slash heel surgery, he's still coming back from it. There's some muscular atrophy in his left leg, seems like he's limping a little bit at training camp. Not feeling great here. What are we supposed to do about Alec Pearce?

**Adam Hutchison** (0:59)
Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. He's certainly been one people are asking a lot of questions about just because he's going kind of in that spot of drafts right now, specifically in like Re-Geoff Managed Leagues, where it's like, hey, I'm trying to fill out my flex and I want an exciting, high ceiling player. Alec Pearce certainly fits that mold. But yeah, we've got to talk about the injury here with the ankle. So I know it seems kind of like an arbitrary timeline, but for the last couple of weeks, I've been saying, like, I want to see Alec Pearce practicing by August 17th. It gives him pretty much a full month to ramp up for week one of the season. At this point, I don't think we're going to get there. The PRP injection discussion is interesting. Honestly, I don't know if I care about it too much or if it changes things for me, because I just want to see him practicing at this point. So whether he got the injection, didn't get the injection, when he got it, it really just comes down to practice reports. Colts have not really been transparent with this. They originally kind of came out and said, hey, Alec Pearce is having surgery this off season. It's going to be about a four to six month timeline. Then it became, well, it was a six month timeline, like we're still on track for that. Two weeks ago, Shane Steichen said, hey, he's about one to two weeks away. We're approaching that timeline now.
I don't think he's going to practice. I have concerns that he's going to be ready for week one.
I don't share necessarily the same concerns that people are really concerned about his 2026 fantasy production as a whole on the season. I think he's in a nice spot in Indianapolis to really focus as the number one wide receiver. We've seen him be successful as a field stretcher and a deep target guy.
But if you're drafting, I mean, I've listened to you a lot. You're the same way. You want to know week one, week two, what your team's looking like so you can filter through your bench and be aggressive on the waiver wire. I'm concerned if you draft Alec Pierce, he's going to be a little bit of a roster clogger for the first quarter or even the first half of the season.

**Dave Kluge** (2:53)
I'm looking right now like he is falling big time in drafts. Over the last week on NFFC, he is now outside of the top 80, which is crazy compared to where he was going earlier in drafts.
When you start looking at that, I'll give you some of the other names that are going in that range. First of all, I want to say, before we get into all this discussion, do you want to give your credentials because you're not just a doctor, you're not just coming on here and just talking about the medical stuff. You know football, you are in a ton of dynasty leagues, you play best ball leagues together. You know your football, you're also a doctor of physical therapy, and you just so happen to focus on how these players come back from the NFL. So the floor is yours to talk about your credentials for a minute.

**Adam Hutchison** (3:35)
Yeah.
Credentials for fantasy football. Definitely, like most people listening to this, a fantasy football sicko. I definitely dabbled in best ball. Alibet, low stakes this season, but I've drafted over 200 best ball teams. I'm definitely a fantasy football enthusiast.
But yeah, I'm a licensed physical therapist. And really what I've tried to do the last couple years here is really be a little bit more data driven. People are right. Even though I'm a physical therapist, I have some aspects and information about sports medicine. I am not evaluating these players. Nobody that's talking to you online on Twitter is. So I'm trying to really develop a database to give us some concrete information in terms of what to expect for return to play timelines, historical comps for injury rate, and then really have updated this off season to just say, hey, outside of like what's considered normal variance for a wide receiver one, what's considered normal variance for a wide receiver two weekly, and then factoring in injuries that maybe are pulling that variance outside of our range. So, for example, week to week, we would expect a wide receiver one to have a standard deviation. I know we're getting real nerdy here, a standard deviation of about plus or minus seven points per week. Just because we know wide receiver ones have a high ceiling, it spreads out that standard deviation. Well, if a player that's coming off of a high ankle sprain sees a decrease in fantasy points by 12 points that week, while we can't say, hey, that high ankle sprain is exactly what affected them, we can say that's outside of a normal variance for what we see a wide receiver. That's a substantial injury. What percentage of players are performing outside a normal variance when coming out of a high ankle sprain? Just to give fantasy managers the most informed decision when they're setting those start-sit lineups of players coming off injury.