Resting NFL Players: Does that work?
In the world of sports, there are times when a team can be playing exceptionally well, and catch the eye of the sports world. In the course of a season, they begin to win, and win and win until it is clear that this team is the best team in the arena. But because this is done during the regular season, and not post season, some begin to think that a perfect team should “lose” a game.
Now by “lose” I don’t mean to intentionally throw a game, but when you think about it, to not give your best effort to win is in fact throwing a game away. This is an argument that many have talked over for many years, and it grows when a team, in this case, in the NFL, is doing superior work.
The argument can easily be made about the New England Patriots, who had a perfect regular season, but ultimately lost in the Super Bowl. One can also conjure up the Tennessee Titans, who had an incredible season, at least the first 13 games, but fell apart at the back end of the season.
This year two teams came into question of this argument, the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. Both at one time were the perfect teams of the AFC and NFC, and some started to wonder if maybe this would be the greatest Superbowl ever, having not one, but two undefeated teams.
And in that midst there were people on sports radio talking about whether it was good to be undefeated, if you lose in the Superbowl. Some felt that since both teams were clearly in the playoffs, to just step back and rest their players. Is there any validity to this?
I suppose there is, if you believe that a healthy NFL team is often better than a team with key players out due to injuries. Now we all know this to be true, I mean, take Tom Brady out of the Patriots and what have you got? Take Drew Brees out of the Saints and what have you got? Manning out of the Colts, ect, ect.
This is based on a fear of the unknown, something that kinda is silly when you think about it. When people start talking about the possibility of players getting injured, it to me is foolish talk. We all know that in any game in the NFL, from practice to exhibition to regular season, to playoffs or the Superbowl, or even the Pro Bowl, any player has the potential to get hurt. That is the nature of football…at any given time, a person can get hurt.
But to consider pulling players out at the back end of the season for the potential does not make sense at all. If you KNEW for a fact, by a divine revelation, for example, that Peyton Manning was going to tear his ACL (heaven forbid) on the 15th game of the season, THEN I would pull him out.
But nobody in the NFL has that kinda ability. NONE! So the fear of him getting hurt before the playoffs is no more valid than the fear of him getting hurt in the first game of the season…or the 5th, or the 10th. There is no factual reasoning for a person to think that if they continue to play their starters, they might lose one to an injury. Now don’t get me wrong, this does not mean it can’t happen, because remember, this is a violent sport. But there is no data proving that key players WILL be injured during meaningless games after a team has locked up the top seed in the playoffs.
Yet the NFL does this so often not because of caution, but because of fear. Fear of the unknown. That was not how the Colts and Saints remained the last two undefeated teams, but now with the last few weeks, their great records have been washed into normalcy. The Saints were 13-0, then lost at home to the Cowboys, at home to the Buccaneers and away to the Panthers. These are not games they are supposed to be losing, and they averaged about 15 points each of those games…that is NOT how the Saints have been playing all year. The fewest points outside of those 3 losses was 24 points in a win over the Jets. Why is this happening? Because somewhere in the Saints management is the fear of somebody getting hurt, and by playing cautious, they lost their edge.
Folks, you don’t LIMP into the playoffs, you go in strong!
The Colts were 14-0 before losing their last two, one at home vs. the Jets, the other on the road vs. the Bills. They had a lot of close games during the season, which to me seemed all more the reason to finish strong, but losing to the Jets by 14 and losing big to the Bills seemed to have shown that this team bailed out on perfection and hoping for thing to work out.
The Colts finished the last game with only 7 points…I suggest to you that this is NOT the way to enter the playoffs. I think a good sign of a team that is moving up is when they can beat opponents by at least 14 points. Too many of those 3 point wins, or less, shows that they are not as superior as we are led to think. If you look at the last 10 games, the Colts have not beaten anybody by more than 2 touchdowns, this to me is a weak link in the armor, and a reason why they should have continued to play hard the entire season, as opposed to letting themselves slow down.
Folks, again, you don’t LIMP into the playoffs, you go in strong!
This could be a problem that could end up knocking both the Saints and Colts out of the Superbowl, because they are no longer running on full mode, rather half mode. I just never understood why a perfect team stops playing perfect, but it is based on the fear that something might go wrong. But this mentality wasn’t there after the first 3 games, or the next 5 games, or the next five games. Why does it develop now? Why didn’t the coaches sit down their starters in game 8, for fear of injury? Why not after week 10?
It seems that there was a growing fear as each week passed, partly developed by the media, that if you try to go perfect, something bad will happen. I mean, only one team in the history of the NFL had done this, which is the 1972 Dolphins. But I guarantee you back then there was no influx of fear of whether they needed to sit out their starters for the last game or two of the season. Back then those guys played to win. It seems that is not the case now in the NFL, rather to gamble that you can turn off the “mojo” of a team by week 14, 15 or 16, and expect to turn it back on when the playoffs start.
Sometimes you can’t do that, and you learn too late that maybe you should have never turned it off to begin with.
So we will see what becomes of these two teams, both played exceptionally well, but what chances are there that we will see the Colts vs. the Saints in the Superbowl? If they had finished strong, I would have put money on it… but now, I am not so sure.
