Jacksonville Jaguars' Advanced Stat of the Week: Adjusted Games Lost

No force in football can derail a season as quickly as injuries.

The 2011 Jacksonville Jaguars know this full well. Their season was plagued with players winding up on injured reserve. Just how bad was it? Adjusted Games Lost gives us the context.

Adjusted Games Lost is a great metric that helps to ascertain the real impact of injuries on a team. In short, it gives teams credit not only for the actual games missed by starters, but for the consequences of injuries in terms of lost practice time and diminished performance.

Anytime a starer is ruled out, a team gets credit for one game lost. The team gets partial credit for games in which a starter is ruled probable, questionable or doubtful based on averages for how often these players actually play.

The result is a list that corresponds very well with winning. Eight of the top 10 teams and 12 of the top 15 in AGL finished with at least a .500 record.

One of the reasons why the Jaguars slid back from an 8-8 record in 2010 was the injuries they sustained. The Jags had the ninth-most adjusted games lost in 2011 after having the eighth fewest in 2010. What's amazing is how well the defense played despite losing key players throughout the season.

Only three teams lost more games on defense than the Jaguars. While two of those did go on to play in the Super Bowl, it's still amazing the unit held together as well as it did.

The Jaguars defense was decimated both up front and in the defensive backfield. They ranked in the bottom five for games lost in both categories.

Clint Session is a prime example of the toll injuries took. Session is one of the toughest athletes in the NFL. In Indianapolis, he finished a game with a broken elbow. When it comes to head injuries, however, toughness doesn't come into play. Session appeared in only nine games before being sidelined with the effects of a concussion.

Normally, injuries disrupt an offense more than the defense, and the Jaguars were comparatively healthy in 2011. They lost Rashad Jennings before the season, but Maurice Jones-Drew held up all year. This makes the offensive struggles more worrisome than they would be if they had been more impacted by lost time.

AGL gives some hope to the Jaguars overall. One of my chief concerns for their 2012 season is that the defense will regress statistically. They've had a regime change, and defense tends to be unstable. A big swing forward one year can be coupled with a return toward the middle the next.

If the Jags can have better injury luck, however, they may be able to avoid the natural inertia back toward the middle of the pack in 2012.