Currently suffering from a hamstring injury, former Ohio State University linebacker Ryan Shazier doesn’t exactly carry with him the flashiest of diagnoses heading into the NFL draft. After all, it’s just a hammy.
Right?
Well, perhaps.
News of Shazier’s injury first surfaced during the NFL Scouting Combine when, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Doug Lesmerises, it prevented the linebacker from running the 40-yard dash.
Lesmerises notes that Shazier returned to run at Ohio State’s pro day on March 7. He posted a blazing time of 4.36 or 4.37 seconds, but he pulled up afterward with an apparent re-injury:
Ryan Shazier came up limping just after finishing his 40 at Ohio State’s Pro Day on Friday, but only after doing what he needed to do. Shazier pulled his hamstring, after not running the 40 at the NFL Combine because of a tweaked hamstring.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the NFL draft, even an injury as benign as a pulled hammy merits attention.
Just look at the evidence.
In 2012, Grant Freckleton and Tania Pizzari published a systematic review of medical literature in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in hopes of answering one question: What places athletes at risk of hamstring injuries?
To investigate, Freckleton and Pizzari compiled data from 34 different manuscripts, and a few major trends became apparent.
For one, numerous athlete-specific factors—such as body-mass index (BMI), height and running speed—did not appear…
Continue Reading: Should Ryan Shazier’s Hamstring Injuries Factor into His NFL Draft Stock?
