That is a very good question and important point. Most players play through things all the time and do not have an Achilles rupture. The incidence of Achilles ruptures across the entire NFL is I believe around ~18/yr which is not many.
I guess what I'm asking, with the inordinate amount of Achilles injuries around the NFL, it would seen like the teams would find some way to scan for potential tears?
Scanning for potential tears like with MRI may be a good idea but it's hard to know what to do with the MRI data unless there is a huge quality study involved. Would probably need to do serial MRI's of a lot of healthy, asymptomatic players (along with symptomatic players) over a long period of time to see if and how much an abnormal MRI associates with a rupture. Very complicated.
How often do the things leading to the actual injury lead to nothing?
That is a very good question and important point. Most players play through things all the time and do not have an Achilles rupture. The incidence of Achilles ruptures across the entire NFL is I believe around ~18/yr which is not many.
I guess what I'm asking, with the inordinate amount of Achilles injuries around the NFL, it would seen like the teams would find some way to scan for potential tears?
Scanning for potential tears like with MRI may be a good idea but it's hard to know what to do with the MRI data unless there is a huge quality study involved. Would probably need to do serial MRI's of a lot of healthy, asymptomatic players (along with symptomatic players) over a long period of time to see if and how much an abnormal MRI associates with a rupture. Very complicated.