Stan Conte, with some statisical help, is trying to better assess the chances of players getting injured.

The ability to predict how players’ bodies will fare is a holy grail. With an actuarial approach, Conte seems to have a head start in the pursuit. He is trying to give teams a competitive advantage with a formula to help them avoid players who spend their days in the training room and not on the field.

“The insurance industry has made millions of dollars off figuring out how, when, where and why people are going to die, and we are trying to figure those things out about injuries,” Conte said.

One of the problems he’s facing is the lack of a clean database. I remember STATS, Inc. was keeping track of the disabled list in the 1990s. Maybe Conte can get some data from then.