Injury report

Every snap a player takes carries a small chance of an injury, a little higher with age (3 percent more risk for each year of age in the later part of a career). Hard training raises it too: at the top of the tired scale the risk is 30 percent higher. Better equipment lowers it: custom fitted 4 percent lower, premium 7 percent lower, best available 9 percent lower. A hurt player leaves the game.

Most injuries are short. Of every 100 that happen, about 45 cost no games (a stinger, cramping), 32 cost one or two, 17 cost three to six, 4 cost seven or more, and 2 end the season. The offseason heals everyone.

Recovery staff shorten an injury: none 15 percent longer, physio the normal length, recovery team 10 percent shorter, full recovery staff 15 percent shorter. A physio is part of the standard plan.

While you are hurt you cannot play, but you still train, lightly (see the training guide). The game page and your inbox say you were out injured, and you come back for the first game after your injury runs out.

Insurance pays part of your weekly pay on top of your salary while you are hurt, and costs a share of your salary a season: Covered 50 percent for 4 percent, Plus 70 percent for 6 percent, Full 90 percent for 8 percent. Nobody has cover until they pick it (the choice starts at None), and each pays back its premium only after more than four weeks hurt in a season, so it is cover and not a way to make money. The money guides explain it fully.

The injury report lists every team's players who are out, your own team first, with the injury, the week he was hurt, and a line such as "Out 2 more games, back for Week 9" or "Out for the season". A player hurt in the latest week gets a New tag. An injury appears only once the game it happened in has finished playing out, so the report never gives away a result.

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