If the New York Giants beat the Buffalo Bills this week they will clinch the 5th spot in the NFC playoffs.
And in the very likely event that the New England Patriots beat the Miami Dolphins, the Patriots will head into Giants Stadium on Saturday December 29th, aiming for the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history.
A major debate is raging about whether the Giants should go all out trying to win and get their names in the history books, whether they should rest their injured guys, but play the healthy ones and try to win, or whether to rest everyone and use the opportunity to get a de facto bye week.
Normally for poll questions I don't weigh in because my arguments are so rational and salient that it would be hard for anyone to disagree with me. But this time I think I may get some opposition.
The Giants should definitely rest everyone and take the week off.
First of all, the NFL system is set up to reward the best teams with a bye. So the system indicates that a bye is valuable, and if the Giants lucked into one, they should take advantage of it.
Second, as cool as it would be to beat the Patriots, it's not likely to happen, and therefore not worth the risk to injured players, healthy players and the psyche of the team, should they get their asses kicked.
Third, the playoffs are what matters. While it is unlikely that the Giants could win more than one playoff game, taking even the smallest chance that playing hard against the Patriots would decrease their ability to win in the playoffs, is foolish.
By the way, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo maddeningly flip-flopped on this issue, last week saying the Giants would look like "horses' fannies" if they didn't play Manning and instead used "Jared Lorenz." But yesterday he screamed at callers who said they'd rather be in the history books for beating the Patriots than be forgotten even if they beat the Bucccaneers but lost in the second round.
You PLAY to win the GAMES!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteUsing only my memory as a reference it seems as though the ratio of "Teams that rest their players and come out flat in their first playoff game" to "Teams who lose a key player in meaningless week 16 and 17 games" is about 6:1.
ReplyDeletePlus after seeing their last performance I think the Giants need to get some fundamentals down.
The Patriots could have a defacto 3 bye weeks in a row but you can bet your ass they'll be playing. Week 16 and you're going to see Brady and Randy Moss out there in the 4th quater.
ReplyDeleteThis is just a sidebar to your question by stating what Bill Belichick will do. I personally think the Giants should rest, but they'll look like douches if the Patriots have their first string out there.
There should be a 4th choice:
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter because the Giants will fold like a cheap suit anyway.
The Patriots have to play all their guys and go for immortality. If they were 13-1 at this point you can bet Brady and Moss wouldn't be playing all four quarters of these next 2 games.
ReplyDeleteI have always been a fan at actually playing your best players - to win outright. Because it really seems that the Pats can lose, even if they go 16-0 and blow it in the playoffs. But against a non existent Giants secondary the Giants might as well play to their full potential.
ReplyDeleteYou beat (Holy Moses) the Pats and you come out healthy, you need that mo going into Tampa or Seattle.