National Football League

NFL's 5 healthiest, most injured teams; previewing Giants-Cowboys

Updated Nov. 22, 2022 8:54 p.m. ET

A great Week 11 is behind us. The Cowboys came off a loss with a real chip on their shoulder by hanging 40 points on the Vikings. A walk-off punt return kept the Patriots' 14-game win streak against the Jets alive, and a Chargers team that thought they would finally be at near full strength at wide receiver again saw Mike Williams re-injure his right ankle on his first catch of the game on Sunday.

We also unfortunately saw impact players go down this week. Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts suffered an MCL tear, one that is severe enough to most likely require surgery, which will ultimately end his season if so. Justin Fields injured his left shoulder at the end of the Bears game, and is a big story to watch moving forward. Matthew Stafford had to leave the Rams game and is undergoing further tests to determine whether he needs to enter the concussion protocol. Stafford missed Week 10 because of a concussion, and with head injuries under a microscope and a player's health at stake, many tests will be run to make sure the team does what is best for him.

With all of these injuries and the playoff pressure bearing down on teams, health is even more important. Our data shows that by Week 13 health starts to take a front seat to many other factors in determining wins and playoff berths. So let's look at who were the healthiest and least healthy teams going into last weekend based on thepredictors.com BUS rankings.

Healthiest Teams Ranked by BUS Score:

1. Jacksonville Jaguars – 88.0

2. Kansas City Chiefs – 82.8

3. Philadelphia Eagles – 82.2

4. Chicago Bears – 81.0

5. Pittsburgh Steelers – 80.4

Least Healthy Teams Ranked by BUS Score:

32. New Orleans Saints – 52.5

31. Los Angeles Chargers – 56.6

30. Tennessee Titans – 57.0

29. Denver Broncos – 58.1

28. Arizona Cardinals – 58.2

As teams suffer injuries, game plans change and teams can tend to lean on certain players, which in turn can cause overuse injuries to those players. Teams like the Giants, Titans and a host of others who have strong running backs and wide receivers but are decimated at other positions might start overusing their reliable players, which could cause more damage than good if they break down over time.

As Week 12 approaches, a Thanksgiving Day NFC East match-up makes headlines as the 7-3 Cowboys take on the 7-3 New York Giants at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

Dallas comes in with a 67.5 BUS score in Week 11 having some key players on their injury report, including DeMarcus Lawrence (foot) and Ezekiel Elliott who was listed as questionable but returned from an MCL injury last week. He ended up with 42 yards and two touchdowns on the day. A potentially larger story is Micah Parsons, who was injured when a pack of players rolled up on his knee. He has since said that he "had never had that (pain) before" but added that his knee was "cool," so it won't be a surprise to see him on the field Thursday as this isn’t the first time he has played through an injury this season.

On the opposite side, the Giants have been playing through injuries all season, and as they started to climb out of the bottom five teams in terms of health, they were hit yet again by another injury. New York had a 70.1 BUS going into Week 11 but saw rookie receiver Wan’Dale Robinson tear his ACL, adding yet another blow to the team's receiving corps. Add that to their long list of other impact players currently out and the Giants likely will have another drop in their Banged Up Score prior to the Cowboys game unless they can get a few players back this week.

It is shaping up to be a real battle between the two teams, with health playing a very important role. As new BUS Rankings are released this week make sure to keep an eye out for them on ThePredictors.com and on Twitter at @NFLonFOX and @SportsDocMatt this week.

Renowned orthopedist Dr. Matt Provencher and his company, ThePredictors.com, deliver data-driven injury insights to football fans. In this first-of-a-kind role as Athlete Injury and Performance Analyst for FOX Sports’ digital platforms, Provencher provides important predictive player health and recovery information about post-injury performance, the impact of weather, field conditions and more.