Does it mean he's saying hang and power cleans are safer than deadlift? I've only ever deadlifted, but cleans always looked way more injury prone to me. Am I missing something? (I do deadlift not for the sake of deadlift)
I think one caveat he doesn't mention, is all the pro athletes choosing cleans over deadlifts also have coaches there who are making sure their form is good.
In that case then yeh, it's a more technical lift and provided you're getting good coaching you're less likely to burn out your CNS on a clean than on a deadlift.
I don't see why so much fear about DLs (and yes I've hurt myself once or twice - which is less than on other sports btw). And yes if you do it properly it's ok.
But I guess the issue is people trying to overexert and maybe not getting all the cues, and/or it's easy to "slip" and end up doing it with bad form and it requires good coordination (but maybe less than power cleans)
Low intensity, warmup, of course go for a PR once in a while because that's fun and maybe doing it more than 2x week is going to take a toll on your CMS