Banged Up Bills and Spartera have teamed up to give you a new way to find all the answers you have wanted to ask about NFL injuries. These answers have either not had a clear answer or taken a lot of effort to find the answer. We have created an interactive product that allows you to search for nearly any answer you want to look at injury histories, trends, position specific issues, or anything you’re curious about.
Spartera is a data marketplace that turns proprietary datasets into instantly queryable answers, you ask a question in plain English and get an answer back without having to do the digging yourself.
This information is incredibly valuable for multiple demographics for a variety of uses. Research, fantasy football, sports betting, general knowledge, trend analysis can all use this information to find that specific information that simply doesn’t exist for your exact question. There is plenty of research out there to show historical trends from years past, but instant answers or team specific data isn’t as readily available unless you do the research yourself or someone is crazy enough to keep up on it.
Now you don’t have to do the work or hope someone has it.
https://marketplace.spartera.com/sellers/banged-up-bills
Origin Story
This came to fruition after years of running Banged Up Bills, the site that you’re reading. I noticed trends of how the Buffalo Bills have managed injuries which influenced how to interpret the injury report. There were certain trends such as practice participation that led to an early understanding how to interpret whether a player would play later that week. Understanding the type of injury and positional demands also helped influence the final injury report.
A hamstring strain for a wide receiver and offensive lineman are handled differently in terms of practice participation or performance come Sunday. This led to research looking at league questionable injury rates over the years. A player that is questionable is supposed to be 50/50 on whether he plays. But historically, over the last 10 years, that has varied between 45 percent and 90 percent. Break it down even further for specific years and it’s between 10 percent and 90 percent. The questionable designation varies wildly between teams. Understanding how teams manage that designation allows someone to better predict whether a player plays and how they may perform.
Finding that information takes time, a fair understanding of the injury and positional demands along with knowing where to look. Doing this research I found there to be plenty of information that is incomplete. Partnering with Spartera allows that time to be eliminated and to find the answers you want, now.
History of the Injury Report
The NFL injury report has evolved over the years from the first introduction in 1947 under NFL Commissioner Bert Bell. The injury report was to thwart bookies and gamblers to be more transparent with the status of a player’s injury to prevent inside information from influencing betting lines or fixing games.
The injury report has evolved over the years with having players on the report with a game status to provide specifics such as which arm is affecting quarterbacks or which leg is affecting kickers/punters. It has gone further to show what players are on the injury report as they open their practice windows to return to play from injured reserve.
Trends
Certain teams handle certain injuries in different ways. Some may be more conservative with soft tissue injuries with many players rarely practicing or playing the following week. Other teams may be aggressive during certain times of the season or depending on the player. Understanding the nuances of how each team operates helps find that advantage to get ahead of your fantasy squads or bets.
Other injuries such as concussions help better understand their progression through the week to play the following week. If a player doesn’t practice all week, it’s easy to assume that the player won’t play. But what are the rates at which a player is limited all week and questionable? The team isn’t always forthcoming whether a player clears protocol or sometimes it’s not clear whether they play until warmups on Sunday. While each concussion is unique, understanding the participation rates during the week helps you be a better informed consumer, especially at a position and team specific level.
This isn’t meant to be predictive, but past results can influence future outcomes which can help you stay ahead of the curve.
How It Works
Simply go to the link and select the product you want to view.
https://marketplace.spartera.com/sellers/banged-up-bills
You can modify your question by picking the parameters provided. Let’s say you wanted to see the average games missed by a wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills in 2025? The answer you get is a preview of the final answer after it samples a portion of the data. This allows you to get an idea of whether this is the answer you are looking for. If you want the full accurate answer or data, you then buy the answer with credits you purchase. 1 credit is worth 50 cents.
You can then own that answer to use as you see fit. Whether you want to use the stat in an article, information for your bets, or fantasy football, it’s up to you. Right now, there are queries for the top 20 most common injuries within the injury reports from 2016-2025 along with several other questions that you may find of value including questionable injury rates by year that let you search by team, year, and position.
As more questions are asked and more products are created, then you can get the answers you’re looking for. This will be an ever evolving database that will be shaped by your questions and interests. This will never be a truly finished product as new data is added every week which affects the answers.
Limitations
With any data set, there are limitations.
What isn’t currently in these data sets:
-Injured Reserve players or preseason injuries
These players are not on the injury report unless they are in their practice window. This means you will not be able to find complete injury histories for a player for example if they tear an ACL in the preseason and miss the entire year. There are no official injury reports for preseason.
-Specifics such as high-ankle sprains, side specific injuries for non-quarterbacks or kickers/punters, or differentiation between types of specific injuries.
That particular information is available for the Buffalo Bills due to my work covering the team, but the injury report does not historically go into that much detail. We are simply going off what is publicly reported. Reports often add in additional details based on sourcing, but most of this data does not currently have this information.
-Player performance coming off injury
Right now, player statistics are not within the data set. Would I like to have this data? Absolutely. One step at a time.
-A query to give you an immediate answer.
The more complex the question, the more it costs. Many products will look to provide you with a variety of parameters to help you customize your question to the answer you are looking for.
–An answer giving you multiple results.
Calculations currently don’t offer this such as looking for an injury history of a player yet. If you want multiple answers about a specific question, looking at a graph is the only way right now. We are currently working on introducing graphs as part of the products to show trends, outliers, and anything else you can graph to analyze the data in a way that makes sense.
Costs
Why is there a cost?
There’s a cost because every query runs against live infrastructure, and the months of acquiring, formatting, and cleaning this data took real work.
Could you find this information on your own? Absolutely. All this data is publicly sourced combined together in this database. For the AI software to give you an immediate answer is where the value is at. If you think you can find the answer on your own, have at it. This project took months to complete along with years of education as a physical therapist and those working behind the scenes at Spartera to build the infrastructure.
You will see this data be used within articles or posts to answer questions which means you may have your questions ultimately answered. But if you want to do your own research or have questions to answers that aren’t available yet, this is your chance to find the answer yourself without having to do the tedious research.
As more questions are asked, the better the answers will be. Feedback is important to tweak common queries or new ideas that lead to new features. This is an evolving database which means new data is added during the season and ways to ask the questions improve.
I invite you to try this out. Challenge it with questions. Provide feedback or suggestions on what you like and what you don’t. The only way this gets better is by using the database. Reach out at @BangedUpBills on X, IG, Banged Up Bills on Facebook, or kyle@bangedupbills.com.
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