Fantasy Football Injury Outlook: Javonte Williams, Breece Hall, Jaylen Waddle

Welcome back! For those who are newly joining, I’m Deepak Chona, M.D. – Stanford. I’m also a Harvard-trained sports surgeon and the founder of SportsMedAnalytics. I’m so excited to team up once again with the amazing squad at FantasyPros.

SportsMedAnalytics specializes in advanced injury analysis – predicting return timelines, performance impacts, and re-injury risks – by combining big data and machine learning with clinical experience.

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Here are the 10 biggest injuries questions of the fantasy football draft season. Below I highlight a few notable players.

NFL Injuries to Know (2023 Fantasy Football)

Breece Hall (RB – NYJ)

Dalvin Cook signing does NOT mean Hall is behind schedule. Machine learning still rates his chances of playing Week 1 at roughly 65%. But the data also warns us to temper early expectations. Young running backs coming off of knee surgery tend to need a few games to ramp up their touches, and the Cook signing only makes this more likely. As for efficiency, factoring in Hall’s pre-injury athleticism, age, draft capital, and injury timing, he projects for 85% Week 1, ramping up to 90% around Week 6 and 95% by the end of the season. Hall offers major potential value in Round 4 of drafts if he makes it that far.

Javonte Williams (RB – DEN)

Williams has been far ahead of average timelines for this injury. A typical running back return takes 15 months, and JK Dobbins did it in 13. Williams has made it all the way back at only 10 weeks. As with Hall, young RBs do tend to see that 3-to-4 game ramp up in touches, but Williams’s heavy preseason usage suggests his early workloads may be accelerated. Do keep in mind that the first 6 weeks of the return are associated with an increase in minor injury rate (hamstring strains, for example). But if Williams avoids such a setback, he projects to hit 90% of his pre-injury point by Week 8 of the season.

Jaylen Waddle (WR- MIA)

Despite missing the majority of the pre-season, we can expect Waddle to be unrestricted for Week 1. Most core injuries wouldn’t cause any noticeable production dip and carry relatively low re-injury risks.