Good point about Hillis. I don't think the way he plays exposes him to getting hurt though. He has a very low pad level and is more like a linebacker delivering the hits rather than absorbing them or maybe a john lynch type safety delivering a crushing blow (just look at how many affletes he has injured when hes gotten a chance to run). On one of his touchdown runs I was amazed at how low he got, it was almost unreal. But little nicks like thigh bruises tend to happen to all players. If he had the opportunity to rest this wouldn't be a problem for this week.
You are right, I can see how they would consider them injury prone, but not anymore than black players. Someone asked if someone on this site could compile a list of all the black busts at runningback. I looked it up, but never compiled the list. The reason why is, so many of the blacks didn't do anything in the league because of injuries, it was a pretty big number. Guys who lit it up for a few games and then were never the same. I didn't know whether to classify these guys as busts or not, but it was a big number. Maybe the coaches who think whites are more injury prone should take a look at it.
This is in a league where they are constantly putting black runningbacks in the nfl, compared to maybe a handful of white runners given carries the past decade. Combine that to the fact that most whites have to play through minor pain/injuries in fear of losing their job and usually have practice harder ( Also there are some black players who seem to want to injure white skill position players by giving dirty hits, like aiming for the knees.) The fact that Hillis got to sit out practice and still played Sunday was surprising.
Even when guys like Craig James and John Riggins played, there were more black runningbacks in the league. The fact that Riggins played into his mid 30's shows that whites are durable. Had Craig James been around today he might have been able to come back from his knee injury, Reggie Bush has had several knee injuries and still hasn't lost his agility, even though he doesn't know how to run up the middle, which is more proof of how injury prone blacks are. They can't even stay healthy in a runningback by committee scenario, the 3 backs for the Saints are all injured.
You are right, him being the only white feature back there is a high chance of injury at some point, you only have to look at what allowed him to shine in the first place. 6 injured backs in Denver, and then 2 injured backs in Cleveland to be the feature back. So a total of 8 injuries, yet if he is injured dwfs will think "that style of running is just not cut out for today's nfl" which is what I have heard before.
Edited by: snow
