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The theory of resting/playing your starters in a quasi-meaningless game.


njbuff

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I don't think resting players for one week makes them rusty...after all there's the bye week every season.  I do think there's danger in slowing down your momentum and just punting a whole game away.  Losing begets more losing.

 

I'd probably rest the 3-5 most important players and otherwise play to win.  We're deep enough to beat Miami without some combination of Josh, Diggs, Tre, Milano and Morse.  Miami would be favored but I think it would be competitive and not slow down the team in a demoralizing way.

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This is the way I look at it....if you look at each game as a coin flip the Bills have a 75% chance to end up with the 2 seed, only if Pitt wins and Bills lose will they get the 3.  But even then that does not mean game 2 of the playoffs is not at home, if Pitt loses in the WC round, the Bills still get the home game, so again using the coin flip analogy you bring the percentage to 87.5% and that is with resting guys.   Now we can talk about if games are 50/50 but I think the Bills could still win against the Dolphins.    So you can increase the 87.5% up by "not resting" but you still risk losing the game to the Dolphins anyway and having nothing to show for it.  Then consider in the worst case scenario the Bills would have to travel 3 hours south by car to play in an empty or mostly empty stadium.....it really becomes a no brainer.....you dont risk injuring your key players....you are likely to still get the 2 seed.

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I agree with the op, you play them to keep them sharpe, and sub in backups when the game is in hand, sitting them because they “might” get hurt is just silly, any starter can get hurt on any play, even in the first game of the post season, it is just a silly notion that you just sit all your starters because of some hypothetical injury scenario, it just lacks logic. If a starter ie; Beasley is already dinged up, then you let them have additional time to heal, but that’s it. 
 

Go Bills!!!

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3 hours ago, njbuff said:

This is a topic that deserves its own thread as many of us have debated on what McDermott should do with his starters in the final week of the season.

 

Actually, we all have strong opinions on this matter.

 

I am in the camp of just playing your starters and pull some out of the game as the game progresses.

 

What is your take?

There are at least two--the last one (above) was closed because there was already another one on the topic.

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2 minutes ago, machine gun kelly said:

Weo, it’s ok, Hap, Chand, and SDS are catching up on their leftover turkey and mash from Xmas, and returning all of those ties they didn’t want anyway.  I noticed the same and didn’t want to say it, but knew you would, so tag you’re it for being the bad guy. 😇😂😏😷🏈

 

lol.  I only wish the OP had just gone all in and began this with "hear me out"...

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Or, “just a thought”, “consider this”.  
 

I don’t mind.  He’s excited, no big deal.  We’re all excited.  As long as everyone knows it’s good natured fun, and hey we’re ina ground I don’t think we had a mafia, or a TBD back in the day.  He’ll, Gore invented the internet. 😂😷😏💪

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I'm of the mind that you play to win. As soon as you let your foot off the pedal is when bad things happen. Now, if they're up by double digit in the 2nd half then yea, most of your 'starters' should be sitting. Until that though, you keep going and don't stop. 

 

We've all seen that a guy can slip on a mat and get hurt.

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7 hours ago, BuffBillsForLife said:

If you rest starters, they do get slightly rusty.  But you also don't expose starters to injury in a meaningless game and give people more time to get healthy.  I support resting starters.

I disagree that they will get rusty. Aren't we undefeated coming out of bye weeks under McD? They will still practice during the week, it's not like they just sit around at eat wings and pizza all day.  I can't imagine after 16 weeks, they get rusty missing 1 game.

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Honestly I was more worried about the Pat's in the 3rd with josh and diggs still on the feild things getting chippy, Pat's already out of playoffs, game was already out of reach. All It takes is one dirty tackle from a pissed off Pat's player and the bills playoff hopes are done. Dolphins are at least playing to stay alive

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If we were the #1 seed and had a bye in the first round, would you think that's a bad thing because the whole team wouldn't be playing, as opposed to resting a handful a players in a 'meaningless' game in week 17?  Do you think the Chiefs are now at a disadvantage being the only team not to play in the first round of the playoffs?

 

You can't sit your Oline starters because your QB and RB's will get beat to crap.

You can sit 22 starters, you don't have the roster. You might sit 3-5 starters. Sit those that would benefit from missing a game. If Josh is getting knocked around early, sit him.

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Read one article today that talked about the Bills having momentum and you don't want to lose that with a loss.  Certainly is some truth to that, does it out weigh the injury risk or having to play the following week on the road, tough to say. 

 

I do know with a Bills loss and a drop to 3rd seed a better chance they could end up with a 1st round matchup with the Ravens which IMO is the team I'd least like to play.  They have a strong defense and they are probably the one other team as hot as the Bills are right now.

 

Overall think I'd like to see them play the starters, blow the game open by half time, then sit everyone.  Oh course then Fitz will come in and all bets are off!

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The Chiefs are resting every important starter meaning they get 2 weeks of rest.  

 

This happens all the time.  

 

There is zero reason to be concerned about losing your edge.  These guys are usually sharper coming off a bye.  

 

So since I'm very optimistic the Browns will win, I'm sitting Allen, Diggs, Morse, Brown, White, Milano, Edmunds, and Oliver.  They don't see the field Sunday.  

 

Every other starter gets a few series and out.  

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