Injuries plague fantasy owners over the first three weeks of the NFL season

If you are one of the esti­mat­ed 41 mil­lion peo­ple in the U.S. or Cana­da who are par­tic­i­pat­ing in fan­ta­sy sports in 2014, you are no doubt heav­i­ly invest­ed in the health and per­for­mance of the ros­ter of play­ers on your fan­ta­sy foot­ball squad.

The sta­tis­tics that play­ers — espe­cial­ly skill play­ers — put up on a week­ly basis is the back­bone of your fan­ta­sy team’s per­for­mance that could pave your way to a cham­pi­onship and all the rewards that a $1.71 bil­lion fan­ta­sy league mar­ket share has to offer.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for some of you out there, the NFL has been rife with injuries over the first three weeks of the season.

The defens­es of the Wash­ing­ton Red­skins and Detroit Lions were hit by the sea­son end­ing injuries of key com­po­nents DeAn­ge­lo Hall and Stephen Tul­loch in week three of the sea­son. With the San Diego Charg­ers los­ing Dan­ny Wood­head for the sea­son, Car­son Palmer out for the fore­see­able future, and Robert Grif­fin III poten­tial­ly replaced fol­low­ing an ankle injury — fan­ta­sy play­ers are left scram­bling to fill holes in their rosters.

The ques­tion remains: Is any play­er safe?

Ari­zon­a’s QB Car­son Palmer watch­es the action from the side­lines while nurs­ing a dam­aged nerve in his shoul­der (Pho­to: AP) 

San Diego’s RB Dan­ny Wood­head is cart­ed off the field after suf­fer­ing a bro­ken fibu­la, end­ing his seaon (Pho­to: CBS Sports) 

Wash­ing­ton’s CB DeAn­ge­lo Hall writhes in pain after suf­fer­ing a torn achilles in a 37–34 loss against Philadel­phia (Pho­to: Wash­ing­ton Post) 

Wash­ing­ton’s QB Robert Grif­fin III scam­pers away from a Jack­sonville tack­ler, result­ing in a poten­tial­ly career alter­ing ankle injury (Pho­to: SB Nation) 

Detroit’s line­backer Stephen Tul­loch pulls up after tear­ing his ACL cel­e­brat­ing a sack in a 19–7 vic­to­ry over Green Bay (Pho­to: USA Today)