It's probably more the profile of those getting injured, stars of the game, rather than the sheer rate that has people wondering. I can't remember a fantasy season quite this bad where so many fantasy relevant players have gone done this early. Danger, Neale, Dunkley, Butters, Dusty, Ridley, Rowell, Heeney, Hurn, L.Ryan, Yeo, Sloane, Rayner, Adams, De Goey, Hickey, Howe, Caldwell, Draper, Young, Witts, Cogs, Buddy, McDonald, L.Jones.
So it's quite possible to have burned through 4 or 5 trades on dealing with injuries alone. Whether it be trading out the players affected directly for LTIs or eliminating bench donuts to cover them for the shorter term injuries. Hopefully things do drop off or most coaches won't be able to finish their sides as they'd hoped. I'm already considering value options like Brayshaw, May, Heeney etc as keeper trade-in targets that in other years I'd probably avoid.
With trades getting diverted towards injuries and many rookies struggling to make $100K things are looking a little bleak right now.
Even that list isn't that exceptional. I mean Dusty, Ridley and De Goey probably wouldn't have missed in past years and are a result of the rule change on concussions.
Of that list Dunkley, Rowell, Heeney, Shuey, Yeo, Sloane, Howe, Caldwell, Draper, Young, Cogs and Buddy all missed games last year, many with the same or very similar injuries.
A couple of the guys like Hurn and Adams missed games in 2019 as well.
Last year also had Josh Kennedy x2, Taranto, Kelly, Fyfe, Selwood, Duncan, Pendles, Docherty, Sidebottom, Cunnington, Houston and several others all with injuries as well.
Honestly it doesn't feel that exceptional to me to be honest, I mean looking at last year in round 6 you had Zorko, Milera, Newman, De Goey, Beams, Howe, Sidebottom, Daniher, Draper, Heppell, Stringer, Cox, Fyfe, Pearce, Hamling, Hogan, Logue, Stanley, T. Stewart, Rowell, Taranto, Ward, Z. Williams, Impey, Jiath, Scrimshaw, Breust, Cunnington, LDU, Higgins, Thomas, Larkey, Ziebell, Burton, Duursma, Drew, Cotchin, Edwards, Houli, Lynch, Nankervis, Prestia, Hannebery, Jones, Franklin, McCartin, Naismith, Reid, Sinclair, Hutchings, Shuey, Dunkley and B.Smith all on the injury list who you could argue were at least very close to best 22 guys, many fantasy relevant.