All values updated through Week 5 of the 2026 season.
The refrain is the same every year; injuries in the NFL mount quickly in the early going, with big names dropping like flies left and right. This year we’ve seen quite a bit of play from third-string quarterbacks, to go with some of the same injured quarterbacks we dealt with last year.
We also are seeing a familiar team towards the top of this list. The radioactive substation references were flying early as the 49ers saw a lot of early losses, although their long-term prospects don’t seem to be hurt as much as some other teams. Quarterback injuries can sink a team; while the Commanders and Bears have been leading and winning games with third-stringers, we’ve seen that you can only pull that off for so long.
Let’s take a look at the league totals in terms of games lost and value lost so far this year.
| Team | Games Missed | Total Points Missed |
| Bears | 54 | 65 |
| Commanders | 50 | 61 |
| Texans | 81 | 40 |
| Patriots | 57 | 36 |
| Cowboys | 71 | 36 |
| 49ers | 61 | 34 |
| Chargers | 51 | 29 |
| Eagles | 55 | 28 |
| Browns | 57 | 27 |
| Ravens | 39 | 27 |
| Lions | 50 | 26 |
| Panthers | 39 | 25 |
| Buccaneers | 37 | 25 |
| Cardinals | 48 | 23 |
| Giants | 33 | 23 |
| Vikings | 52 | 23 |
| Packers | 44 | 22 |
| Rams | 25 | 21 |
| Jets | 70 | 20 |
| Falcons | 41 | 19 |
| Saints | 61 | 18 |
| Titans | 48 | 17 |
| Steelers | 33 | 16 |
| Seahawks | 50 | 15 |
| Dolphins | 48 | 15 |
| Broncos | 27 | 15 |
| Bengals | 28 | 13 |
| Bills | 23 | 13 |
| Colts | 37 | 13 |
| Jaguars | 28 | 10 |
| Chiefs | 19 | 10 |
| Raiders | 49 | 10 |
The value we’re measuring here is each injured player’s Total Points per game over his previous 17 games, multiplied by the number of games missed due to injury. This only counts injuries sustained since August 1.
For those new to our work:
Total Points is a measure of how valuable each player was to his team’s ability to score or prevent points, using Expected Points Added as the currency. Dozens of charting data points go into it: an offensive lineman blows a block, a receiver drops a pass, a defender makes an unlikely tackle, a quarterback throws into a tight window, etc.
All of these successes and failures can be measured in terms of how the team’s results changed relative to what we’d expect on average, and those play-to-play values can be bundled up into a single measure of player value that can work across all positions.
For another view, here is a breakdown of the value lost so far as well as the projected future value lost by players who are already injured. For example, a player who has already torn his Achilles is expected to be lost for the season, so we’re including his per-game value for every remaining game this year.
The Walking Wounded
The Commanders have an, ahem, commanding lead in the combination of lost value so far and lost value remaining, primarily because of the season-ending injury to Laremy Tunsil and the early missed games from Jayden Daniels, for whom Total Points has a high per-game value.
The Bears have had the most value lost so far, obviously with quarterback Caleb Williams leading the way there. Cornerback Coby Bryant’s season-ending knee injury in August has a more cumulative effect.
Others Receiving Votes
The Texans have had to deal with some pretty meaningful injuries so far, but they don’t necessarily have big holes to fill long-term. They have had some wide receiver injuries both short term (Nico Collins) and long term (Jayden Higgins), but they are getting back some offensive line help in Braden Smith.
San Francisco has less lost value than you’d expect, but they will have to prove that they can have a healthy season at this point. They ranked among the most-injured teams each of the previous two years.
The Giants have had two big injuries in Jaxson Dart and Brian Burns, so they’ll be climbing this list as missed games keep accumulating.
Dodging Raindrops
The top teams in the AFC West have both been fortunate to avoid major issues so far, and are unsurprisingly both overperforming what we might have expected from them in the early going.
In fact, the five teams with the least value lost are a combined 17-7 so far this year, while the teams with the most value lost are a combined 10-14-1. That most-injured group is actually performing pretty well all things considered, but keep in mind four of the five were pretty solid playoff contenders heading into the year.
