Why are so Many Quarterbacks Getting Injured this Year?

Out for the season:
Chad Henne, torn shoulder muscle
Matt Schaub, broken foot
Matt Cassel, broken hand
Jay Cutler, broken thumb
Jason Campbell, broken collarbone
Peyton Manning, neck


Missed one or more games:
Michael Vick, broken ribs
Sam Bradford, sprained ankle
Kevin Kolb, turf toe


Expected to miss one or more games:
Matt Hasselbeck, sprained elbow


Playing hurt:
Matt Stafford, broken index finger


Benched for poor play:
Donovan McNabb
Rex Grossman/John Beck
Kyle Orton
Luke McCown
Kerry Collins


Six guys are out for the season and four have missed more than one game (or are expected to). Add that to the five scrubs who lost their jobs and almost half the teams in the NFL have trotted out a back-up QB for some or most of the season.


I don't have an answer to the title of this post, but I wanted to point out this seems like a high percentage of leading men missing a significant amount of time. Especially interesting is the ever-increasing number of rules the NFL makes to protect the QBs, and here we are with almost one-third of them missing games this year due to injury.