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Injuries appear to be hitting the NFL in epidemic proportions.

The Cleveland Browns lost $17.2 million of their $78.9 million salary cap last Sunday when Courtney Brown, Gerard Warren, Kellen Winslow and Ryan Tucker went down with serious injuries; they could go into Sunday's game against the Giants without their starting two cornerbacks.

The Bears beat the Packers but lost too many players in the process. They lost half of their secondary with serious injuries to cornerback Charles Tillman and safety Mike Brown along with defensive tackle Alfonso Boone and guard Mike Gandy.

The 49ers entered last Sunday's game against the Saints without five starters and then watched left tackle Kwame Harris go down with ankle and knee problems that could sideline him for another week. On Wednesday, halfback Kevan Barlow needed an MRI for a strained medial collateral ligament and on Thursday wide receiver Brandon Lloyd pulled a groin muscle.

And the season is only two weeks old. The NFL is television's longest existing reality show but this season is turning into "Survivor." Every year around this time, people say that injuries are worse than you can image. But this year, they are right. It's worse than I've seen and there is no true explanation.

At this rate, the Super Bowl team may not be the best team. It may just be the team that is the healthiest. Considering how thin rosters are anyway, the injury bug is going to cause major changes in the way this season unfolds.

The Chiefs can't blame injuries for their defensive woes, but look at their offense and hand out the aspirin. They tried to come back against Carolina last Sunday with Derrick Blaylock at halfback and a banged up Johnnie Morton and two small receivers -- Dante Hall and Richard Smith -- playing wide receiver. They lost Eddie Kennison in the first quarter and Priest Holmes in the fourth quarter with injuries. That's too much offense standing on the sidelines. They had no chance.

For perspective, I went back a couple of years to look at the Week 3 injury reports to try to spot a trend. In 2002, there were 45 players listed as doubtful or out heading into the weekend. Last year, the number was 53. Heading into this weekend's games, the list of players listed as out or doubtful was 54, subtracting the eight players who went on the injured reserve list for the season.

Where you will see the most significant impact is on Sunday's inactive lists. The Bears, Browns, 49ers and maybe the Colts could have a seven-player inactive list of just injured players. That's not abnormal because it happens every year. What is weird is that it's happening in Week 3. It's too early for attrition to be hitting this hard.

Those who say injuries are just part of the game and they occur every year are missing the point. The injuries are getting worse and consequently teams are adjusting the way they are doing business because of that. The bad new is there aren't players on the street or on practice squads to replace the good players going down with injuries.

Credit the competition committee for having foresight on two fronts. Back in 1992 when the salary cap started, the committee pushed the idea of having practice squads. It studied a season of injuries and determined the normal team would have an average of 4.5 players hurt during any given week.

So, to give a little cushion, they created a five-man practice squad. Though those players were low-paid apprentices, the committee thought they would be able to help a team get through a week of practice when it was hit hard by injuries.

In a stroke of brilliance, the committee pushed to increase the number of practice squad players to eight this season. No, it wasn't anticipating more injuries. General managers and coaches were in favor of expanding the practice squads because of a lack of replacement players on the street. Expanding to 32 teams stretched rosters thin and better cap management puts fewer quality free agents into the market.

The expanded practice squad allows teams the chance to develop some young players and also have them ready for fill-in duty. It's becoming more and more clear in the salary cap era that teams that don't build through the draft are eventually going to fail. With an eight-man practice squad, there is no reason a team can't keep all of its draft choices and groom them for the future.

Still, no one has answers for the injuries. It's been said the long offseason training programs are giving bodies a chance to recover from the previous season. Maybe that's right, the intense offseason programs at least bring most players into camp in shape. The league and Players Association should conduct some study to see how long bodies need to recover from 17 weeks of pounding. But shortening those offseason programs would leave more players physically unprepared for the season.

Though this may not go over well in front offices, there should be some freedom for players to train on their own. Rams left tackle Orlando Pace, Seahawks left tackle Walter Jones and Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson were franchise players who missed their entire training camps, but they reported the week before camp and are off to flawless Pro Bowl starts.

Sometimes, it's good to get away from the office. The problem facing coaches is that letting one or two players train on their own creates exceptions that could lead to more players wanting to work outside team headquarters. Coaches love to eyeball their players throughout an offseason and want to know what all their players are up to. That's just coaching.

The league breaks down injuries in two categories -- trauma injuries and fatigue injuries. Trauma injuries are the broken bones. Unfortunately, they are unavoidable. Padding can help to a certain degree but the impacts are so violent and today's players are so big and fast, broken bones are going to happen. The fatigue injuries are the pulled muscles and blown knees. Trainers have to watch those injuries closely.

To its credit, the league has done a relatively good job of monitoring cheap hits that cause injuries. The heavy fines and threats of suspension are cutting down on the helmet-to-helmet hits by safeties on receivers going across the middle. The league still needs to come down harder on the chop and cut blocks by the Broncos. The broken leg suffered by Jaguars defensive end Paul Spicer because of a Bronco cut-down block of a week ago can't be tolerated.

What teams must accept is that the injury trends are only going to get worse not better. Bodies are getting bigger and stronger. Collisions are getting worse each season.

Three things have to be realized in the NFL's version of "Survivor."

Teams must adjust their personnel philosophy to have injury replacements on the roster instead of searching for starters in the streets in the fall. Unless you're a team that goes deep into the playoffs and is loaded with talent, the idea of coming out of a draft with only four or five draft choices is over. Finding quality undrafted players is harder. Free agency is limited after the first month. Because NFL Europe rosters mostly come from allocated players from existing team, no more than a handful of players can be signed and make rosters. The smart teams will bring seven or eight draft choices to camp.

The days of budgeting $1 million for injuries are over. The Titans, for example, budget $4 million for injuries and trashed the idea of saving $1 million for signing veteran injury replacements during the season. The Titans realize that the cupboard is bare on the streets. Though they budgeted $4 million, the Titans had $5.5 million of injuries when the season started. Their new philosophy is loading up on draft choices and developing them so that they don't have to try to find free agents and spend extra money on them. Smart.

Finally, fans have to realize that the expansion to 32 teams leaves little as far a replacements. There are no starters on the streets who can replace players such as Kellen Winslow, Deuce McAlllister, Jeremy Newberry or Lavar Arrington. Replacements have to be found from backups or the practice squad. Those old days of having long lists of available players to sign are over.

For teams these days, it hurts to be hurt.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.