i think the importance of momentum can’t be overstated. when your team doesn’t have the winning mentality sustained up until the playoffs, you are less mentally sharp and can lose to a team that is, on paper, inferior (see: cowboys, dallas; colts, indianapolis). i dont think the cowboys rested players but they sure blew ass in their last regular season games, and i think that cost them

I think you only have to look as far as when the Colts won the SB for your answer.

That year the Colts had to play all out just to be a Wildcard,so my thinking on it is they had to give all they had and not have the normal Dungy rest to stay in it which in turn kept the tean tuned up and of course we seen the results.

I know there will be some that will make the argument that you take the chance of getting a key player hurt well this may or may not be true but look at it this way if they are fortunate to get a #1 seed they aren’t getting the contact to keep them in game shape and when it does come time to play (about 2 weeks latter) they stand more of a chance of getting hurt in that first playoff game from not playing than they would if they had been playing and stayed in game shape for as long as they good between games.

Sorry about the misspelling ,I meant team not tean tuned up and could not good between games

Well I don’t think my spell check that’s on my Google tool bar works on this site and I don’t know of another on here or one that you can use on here.
Even now as I look at my 1st post for today I see where I misspelled another word and missed it,later instead of latter.

I kind of agree with starting players in later games but if Manning goes down thats all she wrote. Trust me, I was at the Titans game. I had to listen to the upper deck season ticket holders chant “lets go crap” when they put Jim Sorgi in. Still every time we rest players or go into a bye week we seem to not bring our A game. Maybe we would see Manning and crew work later into the season if we had a solid back up QB. But then agian every time Sorgi goes in evryone else comes out. Sorgi had a our back up o line and undafted free agent wide recievers to throw to. A guy can only do so much.

i’m with masterrwayne, in that i think it really depends on the player and/or position in question. for example, i don’t mind seeing freeney or sanders sit in “meaningless” games because they’re injury prone and they never have a problem with consistency/intensity. likewise, manning always seems to lose a little bit when he doesn’t get his regular reps, and since he never gets hurt, (knock on wood,) i don’t see any reason not to play him.