Today in the 3rd quarter, the Colts had a 15-10 lead over the Jets with the ball. They were just over a quarter away from being 15-0 and having only the Buffalo Bills in the way of a perfect regular season.
Now if the Pats went 19-0 do you think the Colts make the same decision?
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The Colts, of all teams, should know that you don't win Super Bowls when you rest players, and you do win Super Bowls when you stay hot, winning games and entering the postseason with confidence.
So if I'm a coach resting my healthy players isn't a consideration. But then there's the asterisk of the undefeated season and the 18-1 Patriots, the best team I've ever seen. Just as I've seen that you don't win Super Bowls when you rest players, I've seen that trying to go undefeated piles on the pressure and might make it harder to achieve your actual goal: winning the Super Bowl.
So I don't want to rest players, but I also acknowledge that going 16-0 might be a bad thing. It's a tough position to be in.
Today the Colts took out their starters and promptly lost the game. (Watching the Manning-less Colts sealed my vote for Peyton as MVP) But that decision wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to the defense who had held the Jets to 10 points and then had to see Curtis Painter give away the game. The same defense who had helped you get to 14-0. We'll see how great that defense plays next week in Buffalo when the game doesn't matter, and then we'll see how great they play in postseason, once they're used to not being important.
Same goes for the home fans. I wonder how much less of a homefield advantage they'll have from the fans in January, when the fans remember the last game the saw was garbage. The Colts threw away this game because they were afraid Peyton was going to get hurt, but has he ever had any sort of injury? Instead, I think they threw away their momentum.
They are the current Vegas favorites (11/4 compared to 3/1 for Saints) and before today they were my obvious pick for the team playing the best, given the way the Vikings and Saints have been playing lately. But if I had to pick a team right now? I don't know that I could pick them.
If they do win the Super Bowl they can laugh at all the naysayers like me and hold their trophy high. But if they don't, they only have themselves to blame.
I would have played my starters the whole game and gone for a perfect season. Sure, the goal every year is to win the Super Bowl, but I had bought into the hype that there have been a lot of Super Bowl winners, but going undefeated makes you one of the best teams of all-time. And it's not like resting your starters means that you're going to win the Super Bowl.
ReplyDeleteLast week, the Sports Guy said he would be angry if Welker plays more than a quarter in week 17. Turns out he tore up his knee on the first possession. Just goes to show you that you can't completely protect anybody. He could have torn his knee on the first possession in the playoffs, too. Maybe he should have been sitting until the Super Bowl.
In short, it's a crapshoot. Go for the W. You play to win the game.