Abandoning Perfection
The Colts are catching a lot of criticism for pulling their starters and I was thinking about the situation and a rather unlikely contrary view. As Rod Serling used to say in his introduction to the Twilight Zone… “We present for your consideration….”
This may seem rather Machiavellian but has anyone considered that the Colts might think that having the Jets in the playoffs might be beneficial to the Colts? (At this point any number of Patriot fans have started nodding their heads, and Bill Polian haters everywhere.) Beating the Jets would have increased the prospects of both Pittsburgh a team the Colts probably wouldn’t be thrilled to see in the playoffs and Baltimore who would be a less desirable opponent than the potential Jets. This also works out really well because the Bengals face the Jets this week and could play them next week as well, if they play conservatively and lose they are very likely the fourth seed and the winner of their playoff game is very likely to end up in Indianapolis as opposed to say the Patriots who instead (if they win) would get San Diego. Not likely in my view that this is really why the Colts did lose but this certainly would be the best draw the Colts could get in the playoffs. If the conditions of contest are set up in such a way that losing to a specific opponent gives you an advantage the problem is with the conditions of contest not the person who takes advantage of it. It is at least mildly insane to expect people (or teams) to act against their long term best interests.
The reason why the Colts were wrong to do this is that the offense is timing based and the more time they aren’t playing at full game speed the worse their timing is. Historically they typically start the first game of the season slowly and don’t play all that well coming off bye weeks. The longer they rest their offensive players the longer it will take to get them back in sync during the playoffs. However it makes perfect sense for them to rest their defense, both because of the injuries there but also because the defense doesn’t have the same issues of timing between specific players. (Note that the Colts won the Super Bowl they did not have a first round bye, coincidence, perhaps not.)
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The Colts are catching a lot of criticism for pulling their starters and I was thinking about the situation and a rather unlikely contrary view. As Rod Serling used to say in his introduction to the Twilight Zone… “We present for your consideration….”
This may seem rather Machiavellian but has anyone considered that the Colts might think that having the Jets in the playoffs might be beneficial to the Colts? (At this point any number of Patriot fans have started nodding their heads, and Bill Polian haters everywhere.) Beating the Jets would have increased the prospects of both Pittsburgh a team the Colts probably wouldn’t be thrilled to see in the playoffs and Baltimore who would be a less desirable opponent than the potential Jets. This also works out really well because the Bengals face the Jets this week and could play them next week as well, if they play conservatively and lose they are very likely the fourth seed and the winner of their playoff game is very likely to end up in Indianapolis as opposed to say the Patriots who instead (if they win) would get San Diego. Not likely in my view that this is really why the Colts did lose but this certainly would be the best draw the Colts could get in the playoffs. If the conditions of contest are set up in such a way that losing to a specific opponent gives you an advantage the problem is with the conditions of contest not the person who takes advantage of it. It is at least mildly insane to expect people (or teams) to act against their long term best interests.
The reason why the Colts were wrong to do this is that the offense is timing based and the more time they aren’t playing at full game speed the worse their timing is. Historically they typically start the first game of the season slowly and don’t play all that well coming off bye weeks. The longer they rest their offensive players the longer it will take to get them back in sync during the playoffs. However it makes perfect sense for them to rest their defense, both because of the injuries there but also because the defense doesn’t have the same issues of timing between specific players. (Note that the Colts won the Super Bowl they did not have a first round bye, coincidence, perhaps not.)