If you’ve been paying attention over the last decade, you know I love a good “old saying”. The one for today is:
“Your best ability is your availability”
When an NFL team signs a player, particularly a starter, the whole team relies on that player to be available to do their part. But, the NFL is a brutal game, and the injury bug bites every player. Some harder than others.
Digital journalist, Holly Sandrove, recently dove into the data and amassed an interesting list of just how much NFL teams spent
on unavailable, injured players in 2025. And, you guessed it, the Texans are prominently featured.
Holly Sandrove at Casino Guru
Key Findings:
- The Arizona Cardinals led the NFL in injured players spending last season, totaling $42.4m in salary tied to the cost of injured players.
- Teams spent more than $540m on injured players in 2025/26, a 23.3% increase year-over-year and showing the rising financial impact of injuries in the NFL.
- The Jacksonville Jaguars ranked lowest in the league for injured spending, with just $4.08m, the most efficient figure across all 32 teams.
- Three of the four teams to reach the Conference Championship Games ranked in the NFL’s bottom half for injury-related spending in 2025/26.
- New York Jets offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker was the NFL’s most expensive injured player last season, accounting for $15.3 million in injury-related costs.
Division rival Jacksonville ranked lowest, while the Tennessee Titans were 3rd highest. Seeing where they landed at year’s end, with the Glitter Kitties near the top and the Not-The-Oilers bottom feeding, shows a pretty strong correlation between injured money and overall success.
2) Tennessee Titans
Next up as the second highest spender on injured players last season is the Tennessee Titans at over $29.5m. They were eliminated from playoff contention for the fourth consecutive season in week 13 after losing to the archrival Jacksonville Jaguars, who found themselves on the other side of the injury cost ranking having spent the least of any NFL team last season. Two Titans players (L’Jarius Sneed & Calvin Ridley) ranked among the NFL’s 10 most expensive injured players last season, combining for nearly $21m in injury costs, equal to 71% of the Titans’ total team injury cost.
However, the Houston Texans somehow bucked that trend, landing on the wrong end of the money pool but still winning the division.
As you likely expect, Joe “Where’s Waldo” Mixon dominated the Texans injured money list, counting $7mil against the total. Tank Dell was the next highest notable player, with a $1.2 mil hit against those battle red bucks.
And therein lies the answer as to how Houston is the exception to the rule that injured money translates to on-field success or lack thereof. When you remove Mixon’s paycheck, H-Town falls down to the middle of the pack in lost wages. Overall, the core starters managed to remain fairly healthy.
Kudos to Mike Eubanks, the Texans strength and conditioning coach for keeping this team healthy last season. Not to mention the fate and/or dumb luck that certainly helps or hinders rosters. Say what you will about quarterback C.J. Stroud’s capabilities, general manager Nick Caserio’s offensive line rebuild, the lights-out defense or offensive coordinator Nick Caley’s epic struggles in running a competitive offense. If the injury bug bites down on the 2026 Texans, and they find themselves near the top of this list this time next year, odds are none of us are going to be happy with the results of the 2026 season.
Speaking of dumb luck, one squat in training allegedly took out E.J. Speed. It’s not just vicious on-field hits that players have to dodge, but “digging deep” in the weight room or on the practice field can take you out, too.
To add to the injury worries, Clayton Anderson recently put a spotlight on Aaron Wilson’s concerns about concussions, specifically cognitive injuries to C.J. Stroud.
While the NFL has, at worst, made an effort to appear they’re doing their best to mitigate concussions and the long term effects, it’s not enough. By its very nature, the NFL will continue to harvest concussions at an alarming rate – it’s not a matter of if, but when, the next one takes down a Texan.
Thankfully, there actually is a focus to reduce the number of brain injuries. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working:
The NFL is facing a concerning issue as the number of concussions keeps rising, even with new safety measures in place. In the 2025 season, there was an all-time high of 538 concussion checks during games, along with 26 medical breaks. Despite having banned seven types of helmets last year, the league is now ramping up its efforts to tackle this problem.
As reported by Front Office Sports, the NFL discovered that 44% of concussions during games are now caused by hits to the face mask, which is a big jump from 29% back in 2015. This change has grabbed the attention of top officials.
The topic of concussions aside, the number of key injuries in the last Texans game of 2025 certainly impacted the outcome. And it’s just one more factor in the team’s march toward Super Bowl glory.
Thanks to Max Barlow and Legend Media for sending over the data. For further info on how the above injury spend stats were pulled, check out the original post by Sandrove, here.
