Return curves by injury type across the first three games back. Hamstrings over-recover. Knees stay negative the whole way.
How long does a fantasy player take to recover from an injury?
Injury analysis in fantasy is mostly about when a player returns. What he is worth once he does is treated as a single generic discount.
The discount is not generic. Measured against each player’s own pre-injury baseline across the first three games back, some injury types recover and some do not. Knee and foot stay negative across the whole return window — these players come back and do not resemble themselves. Hamstring is the opposite, over-recovering by the third game back.
| Injury | Spells | Game 1 back | Game 2 back | Game 3 back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ankle | 219 | -0.72 | -1.2 | +0.38 |
| Knee | 214 | -0.78 | -1.92 | -0.6 |
| Hamstring | 198 | -0.63 | +2.03 | +4.85 |
| Concussion | 174 | -0.12 | +0.4 | +1.73 |
| Shoulder | 69 | -0.28 | +1.22 | -2 |
| Foot | 66 | -0.69 | -0.73 | -0.56 |
| Groin | 58 | -0.19 | -2.37 | +4.96 |
A hamstring is a soft-tissue injury with a conservative return protocol, so a player is often held out until he is genuinely ready and returns to a normal role. Knee and foot injuries change how a player moves, and the effect shows up in production rather than in availability.
Ask which injury, not just how many games. The answer to "is he back?" is different for a hamstring and a knee.
Spell-level absences from the injury database, with each player’s production in games one, two and three back measured against his own pre-injury baseline. Injury types with fewer than 50 spells are not reported.
Figures on this page are read at build time from the same data file the site’s projections use.
Sample thins quickly across the return window — game three back rests on far fewer observations than game one. Severity is not separated within an injury type, so a minor knee and a major one are in the same bucket, which if anything understates the gap.