INJURED RESERVE

A player has to be out a minimum of 2 complete consecutive games to be eligible for injured reserve (IR). If a player is placed on IR, he must miss a minimum of 5 games. If a player is placed on IR with less than 5 weeks left in the regular season, than the remainder of time spent on IR will occur in the postseason. Example: a player is injured in week 14 (of a 15-week season) for two games. If he is placed on IR, he would miss not only week 15, but also 4 weeks (in our case, all) of the preseason.

Remember: a player who is hurt at the end of the regular season, but NOT on IR, WILL be eligible to play in the postseason.

This season, a player's durability rating will be increased based on the number of FULL games he misses. In other words, a player hurt during a game, that game does not count as a full game missed.

The formula for increasing a player's durability will be based on his real-life games played. Missing no games is a 5 durability. Missing 1-3 is a 4 durability. Missing 4-6 is a 3 durability. Missing 7-10 a 2 durability; anything past 10 is a 1 durability. This is not true for ALL players, but is true for the overwhelming majority. To see a player's number of games missed, simply double-click on the player. In his information box, on the right-hand side, you will see a number R: followed by a number from 1-16. That number represents the number of games that player was in the previous NFL season. Thus, a "16" means he missed no games. Therefore, if you take this number and subtract it from 16, this will give you the "number of games missed".

The "number of games missed" in real life will have the number of LHFA games missed subtracted from it. The difference will be used to compute the durability, listed above. So if a player is a 3, and missed 5 games, and ends up injured for 2 games, that would make him a 4 when he comes back (5-2 = 3 games missed). Putting him on IR would put him out for another 3 games, meaning he would miss a total of 5 games. 5-5 = 0, when he came off IR he'd be a 5 durability. So, the injury helped him improve one point; putting him on IR helped him improve one point.

Basically, putting a player on IR will only give a max of a 1 point improvement, but this is separated from the improvement gained by the actual injury itself. With the ranges specified above, and the rule that a player has to be injured for two FULL consecutive games before being placed on IR, helps to constrict unearned durability improvements.

One caveat to the above:  If a player suffers an injury that will cause him to miss his exact total of "number of NFL games missed" at once, upon returning from the injury he will be a 5 durability.  Thus, if a player with a 2 durability, who missed 8 NFL games, suffers an injury which puts that player out for 8 full games, upon recovering from the injury he will be a 5 durability.
 
Also, any claim made by a team from placing someone on IR will supercede a claim made on that same player by a team as a result of an uneven trade.  This is because IR claims are made out of necessity, whereas uneven trades are made at the option of the coach.  IR claims will always be made on a 1st-come, 1st-served basis.