Packers Employee Honored as NFC Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year

In a piece of news that should keep observers wondering about the Green Bay Packers' injury epidemic, trainer Bryan "Flea" Engel was named the  NFC Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year by the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society at the NFL's Scouting Combine this past weekend in Indianapolis, according to the Packers official website.

According to writer Mike Spofford:

Engel is the third member of the Packers’ medical staff to be honored in recent years. Dr. Patrick McKenzie received the Jerry “Hawk” Rhea award as the NFL’s outstanding team physician in 2011, while Burruss received the Fain Cain Memorial Award as the league’s top athletic trainer last year.

There's two ways to react to this development: 1) Why are the Packers suffering injuries at a nearly league-leading rate if the medical staff is so good? Or 2) Why is the medical staff being honored if they perhaps aren't deserving?

There's no simple answer to these questions. Both general manager Ted Thompson and head coach Mike McCarthy discussed the preponderance of injuries at the Combine this past weekend, but neither had solutions to the problem.

"There’s no exact science, no," said Thompson. "We, over the course of the last 20 years that I’ve been involved in drafts every year and sometimes you take a player that’s never even been in the training room at their university and once they get to the NFL, they have trouble staying healthy. And vice-verse. You have people who’ve had incredibly bad luck or bad injuries in college or in high school and they wind up playing clean and free the rest of their pro career. There’s no exact science. You certainly try to look at that and try to find out. That’s the reason medical examinations are so important, but there’s no exact correlation to it."

#PACKERSmicroblog

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Comments (11)

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Icebowler's picture

February 27, 2014 at 08:16 pm

I think it's a conspiracy by the other teams to keep the Packers as the "Pulled muscle leaders of the NFL".

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Mel's picture

February 28, 2014 at 09:46 am

Some injuries can't be helped but seems odd all the hamstring issues we have and you would think more stretching or diets would help in this.. Or maybe they give this award cause of the injuries they have to deal with... Still seems unacceptable to be if I was Murphy..

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MarkinMadison's picture

March 01, 2014 at 06:33 am

Charles Woodson did an interview with Green & Gold today, and addressed the injury issue at the end of the interview. You can listen or read the story. http://www.espnwisconsin.com/common/more.php?m=49&action=blog&r=...

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Stroh's picture

March 01, 2014 at 08:23 am

Maybe, just Maybe the trainers are being honored for doing exactly what they are trained to do. A trainers job is to help players be able to play when they do have an injury, they aren't paid only to prevent injuries. Dr McKenzie is also being paid and honored for doing his job. His job is to put the players health (both long and short term) ahead of the teams desire to get them back on the field immediately.

Honestly there's only so much a team can do to TRY, try being a VERY important term there, to prevent injuries. Hayward for example was injured while training w/ a hired trainer in the offseason, along w/ a couple others who showed up for training camp injured. Those aren't on the Packers staff.

There's a myriad of factors that go into injuries and you have to accept that some/most of them are beyond the teams control, Offseason training being one of them.

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4thand1's picture

March 01, 2014 at 08:50 am

Yes, tell it to fired the everyone crowd. You know, the typical blame who ever is convenient?

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ray nichkee's picture

March 01, 2014 at 11:34 am

I think we should fire everyboby, especially the guys that quit serving beer after the third quarter at lambeau. Fire them all! Wait, don't fire the people shoveling the seats at lambeau, we need them. Everyone else is expendable.

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MarkinMadison's picture

March 01, 2014 at 07:13 pm

Wait, you're forgetting the critical people in the operation: the beer vendors.

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ray nichkee's picture

March 02, 2014 at 11:44 am

I didn't forget the beer vendors. They quit serving at some point after half time. I know they don't make the rules but I never hear last call so you can grab an extra. When the game is good and the women are good looking it can get hard to single out the beer guy at a given time. What is this world coming to? Society has let the few bad examples ruin it for the rest of us. I say fire the beer vendors and get some new ones that serve beer till game time. Bring in some competition so the price goes down too.

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LAS VEGAS-TOM's picture

March 02, 2014 at 12:06 pm

Ray, In Vegas, you can get a bucket of ice with 5 bottles of beer, $5 off the strip, $20 on the strip. You can also get some Free one's along the way, & You'll have No Problem singling out the Vendors!!

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ray nichkee's picture

March 02, 2014 at 12:25 pm

That sounds great tom but where are the packers and where do you go fishing? Maybe its all just give and take. Win some loose some. Have fun in vegas while I am stuck working my butt off in WI. I'll have to get my vegas fix in one of my future roadtrips.

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Greenville's picture

March 06, 2014 at 12:40 pm

This has to be a joke a injured prone team with the most players on IR year after year. Wow lmao this is how you know people in charge of awards have no sense.

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