Examples of proximate cause:
-- Player A slipped on the wet turf, got his legs spread apart, and twisted his knee to the side. Proximate cause: footing (check on cleats, condition of turf, decision to play in rain).
-- Player B's knee crumpled after a cheap shot from behind by the opposing offensive guard. Proximate cause: a**hole.
-- Player C was injured in an automobile accident while on personal time away from the team. Other person ran a red light, player not cited by police, wasn't at fault. Proximate cause: other driver running red light.
-- Player D injured left shoulder with possible tear to rotator cuff while lifting weights (bench press). Weight used at the point of injury was only 60% of the player's personal best, and player was properly spotted by a fellow player. Possible pre-existing condition exacerbated by the exercise. Proximate cause: lifting weight, but likely a pre-existing condition as the weights and motions involved would normally not be expected to cause this injury.
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and so on. Someone said we've had 40-60 injuries over the past three seasons (though several of them may be exacerbation/extension of previous injuries), so there's a lot of research to do.
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Once you get all the proximate causes figured out, you can look for patterns among all of them.
And if you find one or more patterns, then (and only then) you can begin to affix blame.
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Short of that, we're still sacrificing virgins or just falling back to "let's blame the boss because he's in charge".
