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Recently, Football Outsiders produced a chart detailing teams' adjusted games lost, a way to quantify how significantly a team was impacted by injuries. They note that for the past three years, the adjusted games lost statistic (AGL) has grown, giving them new highs in the database in each year. But when you look at the Houston Texans' numbers in this statistic, there is a much more striking difference in how they were impacted by injuries than were most teams. The Texans' AGL in 2013 was 70.3 ranking 18th in the league (the lower the AGL number the better). In 2012, it was only 40.8, ranking eighth in the league. The records line up with a difference in the Texans injury situation. The Texans did have some big injuries in 2012, most significantly to inside linebacker Brian Cushing. But the barrage from the 2013 season dwarfted that. The Texans lost their starting inside linebacker, tight end, running back and strong safety fairly early in the season. Of course, a mark of a team's strength comes in how it responds to injuries. Clearly for the Texans there were bigger issues at play than injuries -- the quarterback situation was a major factor in Houston's dramatic descent. Fourteen teams, including seven playoff teams, had a higher AGL than the Texans did in 2013.
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