One of the main focuses of the 2025 preseason has been which starters are suiting up. Green Bay Packers head coach, Matt LaFleur, confirmed that all four of the team’s quarterbacks would receive meaningful reps on Saturday, August 8.
A good majority of the Packers starters will be playing to start their season against the New York Jets. The preseason has seen an increase in starters played, most notably just last night with Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. When it comes to LaFleur’s approach, he is looking at the injury risk based on data provided.
Matt LaFleur’s Decision to Play the Packers Starters Relies on Injury Risk Data
When discussing his preseason approach to the media, LaFleur didn’t explicitly state which numbers he was looking at. Ultimately, he’s one of many coaches that have decided to play the team’s starters for at least some period of time in their preseason opener.
Other than the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Chargers, each team has three preseason games. Hall of Fame game aside, that leaves 180 minutes for each team to figure out exactly what they want to do in the upcoming season.
Matt LaFleur said he wants to play his starters and there’s data that says he’s actually helping his players avoid injury by doing that.
Sound weird? I thought so. But he’s right. I wrote about it today for @TheLeapGB. https://t.co/iOnocUkFE5
— Peter Bukowski (@Peter_Bukowski) August 8, 2025
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Right now, the Indianapolis Colts are in the midst of a crucial QB1 battle. In Cleveland, Shedeur Sanders is looking to fight his way up the depth chart. Tennessee’s rookie quarterback, Cam Ward is taking his first reps on Saturday in Tampa. There are so many different stories this preseason, but LaFleur’s take on decreased injury risk isn’t being talked about enough.
Locked on Packers host, Peter Bukowski, addressed LaFleur’s claim in his latest podcast. Bukowski broke down the numbers, dating as far back as 2016. Knowing that LaFleur has been the team’s head coach since 2019, it felt appropriate to include a few prior years.
Peter Bukowski Addresses LaFleur’s Injury Claim
The exact quote that Packers analyst included from LaFleur was, “Not playing in the preseason can actually increase the risk of injury.” While it may sound silly, Bukowski went down the rabbit hole of finding the numbers LaFleur was referring to.
“I found a pair of studies that looked into NFL injury data,” he said. “There were significant increases in soft tissue injuries in 2020 compared to 2019. What happened in 2020? There was a global pandemic and there was no preseason.”
In total, Week 1 of the 2020 season had 141 injuries. That’s a substantial amount, one that eclipsed the total of 2016, 2018, and 2019. Ultimately, the 2020 season produced 41 more injuries compared to those seasons.
Unsurprisingly, the number of injuries went down in the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Even though many claim to hate the preseason, Bukowski broke down why it’s so important.
“Why does it not make sense to do that for a sport where you are engaging in car crashes 50-60 times a game? It makes sense to have 10-12 a couple times before you get to the regular season,” he mentioned.
The Locked on Packers host added, “The conclusion reached in these papers, published in scientific journals, they concluded it was a statistically significant difference. There is verifiable data, scientific evidence that suggests it makes sense to play your starters some certain amount of snaps.”
Whether these were the exact numbers LaFleur was given remains to be seen. His stance on playing starters in the preseason doesn’t seem like it’ll be changing anytime soon, and that’s thanks to the data.
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