With only one 1st round bye everything has to lineup. Too fluky. I would love to see nfl teams take a page out of the nba playbook and mail in a game. A tough afc matchup…… rest em all. Get healthy and go 6-0 in the division.
Players Health/resting implications
- Thread starter stang233
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Mick063
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If the NFL expands the regular season to 18 games, this is a viable idea. With every additional regular season game that counts, the importance of any given individual game becomes diluted and less important. Considering how playoff qualifications are broken down, AFC games will become the least important of the diluted games. I think you are on to something.
Once playoff positioning is locked in, we already see teams resting players and you are right to mention that this has been further influenced by the availability of only one first round bye. When the league removed the incentive to get a late season win, they also removed the incentive to play stars in late season games. Why add an 18th game when you have formatted the post season to deemphasize the importance of winning that 18th game? In that regard, it is all about the additional revenue as an extra game when the star players getting rested does nothing to enhance the sport.
This is why I think that the NFL ownership embracing sports betting is a horrible idea. There are just too many viable excuses to not put a team's best foot forward now. Corruption can easily be hidden behind plausible excuses to field a deficient team. Further, every blatant miscall by the referees is given a bullhorn of angst by the betting markets. People can legitimately ask if the referees are on the take when obvious infractions are not being called. Further, there is no evenhanded way to enforce subjective calls like taunting.
Once playoff positioning is locked in, we already see teams resting players and you are right to mention that this has been further influenced by the availability of only one first round bye. When the league removed the incentive to get a late season win, they also removed the incentive to play stars in late season games. Why add an 18th game when you have formatted the post season to deemphasize the importance of winning that 18th game? In that regard, it is all about the additional revenue as an extra game when the star players getting rested does nothing to enhance the sport.
This is why I think that the NFL ownership embracing sports betting is a horrible idea. There are just too many viable excuses to not put a team's best foot forward now. Corruption can easily be hidden behind plausible excuses to field a deficient team. Further, every blatant miscall by the referees is given a bullhorn of angst by the betting markets. People can legitimately ask if the referees are on the take when obvious infractions are not being called. Further, there is no evenhanded way to enforce subjective calls like taunting.
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pittpnthrs
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You can't mail in a game in the NFL unless its the end of the year and everything is established already. Wins in the NFL are hard and come at a premium. The NBA play a million games and teams can make up the games they tank. Not so in the NFL.
oldhawkfan
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Agreed. 82 games in the NBA vs 18 in the NFL is a massive difference. There is a much smaller margin for error in the NFL. Teams can’t afford to tank a game unless their seeding is locked up. The Seahawks had 13 regular season wins when they won XLVIII. They easily could have had 14 wins but the last regular season game had no impact on their playoff seeding. Big difference in tanking vs resting players.
