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| Matthew Gordon. 24th December, 2009 - 7:16 pm
 New York Jets coach Rex Ryan?s comments to open his press conference about this weekend?s Jets/Colts game were hilarious. In mentioning that key Colts players being unable to play was his ?wish from Santa Claus?, he articulated something so painfully obvious it?s amazing the Colts haven?t learned from it yet.
The Indianapolis Colts have traditionally rested starters leading up to the playoffs, at least since Cornelius Bennett?s injury in 1999. The concept that starters could get injured is interesting; however, the concept that they will get injured, and that this will cost the team a key playoff game, is different entirely. The arguments against resting them involve keeping starters fresh for the playoffs, maintaining momentum by at least trying to win the remaining games, and in the 2009 Colts? case, seeking the vaunted undefeated regular season record.
The strategy of resting starters hasn?t held a correlation with the Colts? playoff results. Within the last five seasons, they?ve had two when they?ve had either expected (an AFC Championship loss to the New England Patriots) or terrific (a Super Bowl ring) results. They?ve also had three that haven?t worked out so well, having lost their first playoff game (once to the Pittsburgh Steelers, twice to the San Diego Chargers). The records, results, and how the Colts arrived at those points look like this:
2004: Lost the last game of the season in Denver after an eight-game winning streak, beat Denver at home in the second round and then lost to New England in the AFC Final
2005: Started the season 13-0, stumbled to 14-2 amidst talks of resting players, and then lost their first playoff game to Pittsburgh
2006: Began 9-0, fell to 12-4, and then won the Superbowl, with only two of the victories (over Baltimore and New England) being particularly close
2007: Went 13-2, rested starters against the Titans and lost that game, and then lost their first playoff game against San Diego
2008: Won nine in a row to finish the season only to lose their first playoff game, once again against the Chargers
There is absolutely no pattern there whatsoever. If there?s any pattern, it?s that playing San Diego doesn?t seem to bode too well for the Colts. Considering the possibility of a Colts/Chargers AFC Final, not to mention the prospect of a pesky Ravens or Steelers team sneaking into the playoffs and then up-ending the #3 seed, the Colts? long-term worries consist mostly of ensuring that their DVD players have enough game tape in them.
Beyond the Colts, there are certain issues with the concept of resting starters in a meaningless game to avoid injury. The sentence itself is rife with them.
Firstly, there?s no such thing as a meaningless game. There are games that have no direct bearing on playoff positioning or on draft order, but those are only two aspects of a game.
If there was truly a meaningless game full of injury woes and not much else, the NFL would cancel it and the teams would call a draw. There would be lost revenues, but surely a player?s health is more important than some money. Those end of season, non-positioning games are played, and played hard by teams like the Steelers, because the NFL season is 16 games long, 64 quarters plus appropriate overtimes, however many downs it takes.
What a supposedly meaningless game allows a team to do is to develop a culture that respects the totality of the NFL season. Winning a game for a playoff berth or a first-round bye holds enough meaning that it?s never questioned. Winning a game for the sake of winning that game, for being able to say that it was a win, winning it because it?s a game of football and that?s what the players have dreamed of doing their whole lives ? that?s what NFL football is all about, even more than a ring. It?s why teams like the Detroit Lions try hard even when they were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs while American households were still carving their Thanksgiving turkeys. Only one team wins the Superbowl each year, but games big and small are still games of football.
This totality often affects the opponent. In 2007, when the 13-2 Colts rested their starters against the 9-6 Titans, there was a rightful controversy over it. The Cleveland Browns had finished 10-6, qualifying them for the AFC?s #6 seed, but didn?t hold the tiebreaker against the Titans. A 10-6 Titans team would knock the Browns out of contention, whereas a 9-7 one would miss the playoffs, allowing the Browns to advance.
By resting their starters, the Colts almost assured the Titans a victory. This cheated all three teams involved. It cheated the Browns, who had just finished their best season since re-establishment, because the Titans suddenly had an easy opponent instead of an indomitable one. It cheated the Colts, because they had the chance to down a hated division rival and didn?t do it.
However strangely, it cheated the Titans. It?s impossible to take as much pride in a gift-wrapped playoff berth as it is in one that was earned the hard way, especially against a 13-2 rival. In a league so dependent upon bragging rights, the Colts blew the chance to either take theirs (and the Browns?) or force the Titans to earn theirs playing the best football they could.
It isn?t only about player hunger and team rivalry. Fans pay good money to see the players who are advertised to them. The NFL?s rush to advertise individual players has made a number of stars into key beneficiaries of endorsement deals, one of whom is the Colts? very own Peyton Manning. A season seat holder pays to see eight home games wanting to see Manning, not Curtis Painter. With so few home games on the schedule relative to the other major sports, how can the Colts justify resting their most recognizable player for 12.5% of each season seat holder?s time in the stadium? (Or in the case of the single ticket buyer, 100% of that time.)
Regarding the worry about injury, it?s much simpler than NFL coaches want to make it. There?s no reason to believe that a player is any more likely to be injured in Game 16 than in Game 1. If teams are that worried about player injury, they can quite easily solve the problem by never playing their players. Football is North America?s most dangerous team sport. Everyone who puts on a helmet knows that.
Then there?s the other aspect of the injury worry. While it?s certain that some players are more valuable to a team than others, that doesn?t diminish the effects of an injury. If the Colts rest Manning only to see backup Curtis Painter go down with, say, a broken leg, to react by merely expressing gratitude would be callous. Surely, the unfortunate condition of not being Peyton Manning doesn?t merit Painter sustaining a broken leg.
To the eternal chest-beating of the albeit currently queasy Steelers fans, there?s also the issue of whether an injury to a key starter really changes anything. It was only last season, after all, that the Steelers lost Ben Roethlisberger to a concussion in the so-called meaningless last game of the season. Not once did coach Mike Tomlin doubt playing his starters in that game, commenting to the Associated Press on the team?s lack of another game until two weeks away and calling the 31-0 thrashing of the Browns ?a productive effort.? The first-round bye treated the team well, Roethlisberger returned for the playoffs, and the Steelers won the Superbowl.
Coming back to the Colts, a team that finds itself in this situation far more than any team seemingly should, there?s that 16-0 apparition staring at them. The Colts have never been 14-0 before. Winning the upcoming Jets game would place them even closer to that undefeated record. It recalls Bill Cowher?s recent statement that was played on every NFL on CBS commercial for about the last week or two: ?Do you want a championship or do you want a record??
Setting aside the palpable irony that Cowher rarely rested starters during his Steelers coaching tenure, NFL teams should want a record. That record isn?t 16-0, though. For the Saints, it isn?t 15-1. For the Chargers, it isn?t 13-3. For all of those teams, and for all the others, that record is 1-0 in each game played. Teams that have made great season-ending runs, like the 1996 Jaguars (4-7 to 9-7, AFC Final) and last season?s Colts (3-4 to 12-4, admittedly not much postseason success) both triumphed over adversity by taking one game at a time. The Titans have used that same strategy in coming back from 0-6 to 7-7. It doesn?t just apply to teams as desperate as those ones were. Again, each of these games is a game of football invested with all the bragging rights that come with playing in the NFL.
Lastly, Rex Ryan wants the Colts to rest their starters. The Jets are a team that used to play in the Colts? division, that?s eying the #6 seed (i.e. they?d be seeing the Colts again if they make the playoffs and then win their first-round matchup), and has the NFL?s top-ranked defense. The Colts can either give an opponent exactly what that opponent wants, or they can try their hardest to butcher that opponent?s last remaining playoff hopes.
In a league that?s all about bragging rights and that still has a seventh of its season to go, there?s only one plausible thing to do.
Matthew Gordon can be reached at matthewpmgordon@gmail.com
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