FanPost

Stop the silliness

Now that the Colts have a division title in hand, the playoff scenarios are pouring in. And just like every year, like clockwork, the same silliness starts:

Gotta play the starters, even if there's nothing to win. Gotta keep em out there, keep em sharp. Gotta keep momentum.


Kravitz may be riding that train, but Polian isn't, and I'm DEFINITELY not, and it should really be obvious why.

As Polian said in this week's radio broadcast, there are plenty of theories about pre-playoff rest. Does is help the players take a blow, or does it allow them to get complacent? How does it impact sharpness? What where who why how?

Theories are nice, but as Polian points out, that's just what they are: THEORIES.


NOW, let's have some facts. Fact number one: The NFL season is a physical grind. Every game is a car wreck, in a way that you can't appreciate if you haven't played football before. By the time the end of the season rolls around, players have been in 20 games. Every player on every team is physically exhausted. But to win the Super Bowl, you have to have enough juice for that final push, three or four games against the best teams the league has to offer. If you don't have that juice, if your legs aren't fresher, if your body isn't stronger, if you don't have that extra physical edge, you are going to lose. Plain and simple. Why do 350-carry backs always suck in the playoffs? Because they did their best running in Week 8. Rest and freshness is HUGE as the season goes down the stretch, for every player at every position.

Fact number 2: Polian said it best - sharpness is great, but the most important thing is "availability". That means having your star players on the field when it matters the most - the playoffs. We Colts fans should know that better than ANYBODY. All I need to say is Gary Brackett and Dwight Freeney. The Colts Super Bowl chances depend on about a dozen pairs of knees on that football field; Wayne, Saturday, Clark, Brackett, Powers, Freeney, Mathis, Addai, Hayden, P-Money, and, yes, Charlie Johnson. Risking those guys, putting them in the line of fire when ANYTHING can go wrong on any play and wreck the season, is not gutsy, not helpful, not good in any way. It's STUPID.

But I hear, "If we're undefeated, we have to go for it!" And as Colts fans, you should REALLY know better than that. You know who else went undefeated? That Patriots. And then they ran out of gas right when it mattered the most, and that 16-0 didn't cushion the blow or earn them any points in the history of the game; it just made them the most hilarious and ignoble failures in the history of the game. 16-0 is not the goal. The Super Bowl is the goal. Playing for 16-0 hurts that goal.

The thing is, I know that you all know this. I know that, if Freeney goes down in Week 15, you won't say "Well, Caldwell was just trying to keep him sharp." You'll scream and holler and ask God why, why, why was Freeney out there playing for nothing more than a meaningless win. And you'll be right.

Rest, protect, regroup. Get the bye, and have a seat. There is no opposing argument. It's called playing smart, and it wins championships.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Stampede Blue's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Stampede Blue's writers or editors.