Fantasy Football Players Beware: The NFL Has Changed Injury Status Definitions
No longer will the word "probable" be placed on the NFL injury report, and "questionable" and "doubtful" have new meanings. Fantasy Football players take notes.
It's been standard protocol that the NFL has used injury report statuses of "probable," "questionable," "doubtful," and "out." Today the league has made a change that has removed the term "probable" and redefined the remaining definitions.
Pro Football Talk is reporting that the change is being made because players that are listed as "probable" have appeared 95% of the time in games that weekend. It was originally suppose to be a guide to a player being 75% likely to play.
"Questionable" will now be the first injury status and the NFL describes it as “it is uncertain as to whether the player will play in the game." In other words, nothing has really changed since "questionable" was always taken as a 50-50 status. "Doubtful" is now described as a player who is unlikely to play...or again, nothing really new here.
So if you start to see more "questionable" players on your injury report this season for Fantasy Football don't freak out too much. Without the use of the term "probable" we'll see a lot of players listed as "questionable" even if they are 90% for sure going to play. If anything, this will give a friendly reminder to fantasy football players to check the inactive lists on Sunday mornings.