BakoSaint

Just food for thought:

The Saints clinched the NFC South on Nov 28 by beating the Falcons. After that we played the 49ers, Colts, Titans, and Panthers, going 3-1. Had we rested all our starters all 4 games and gone 0-4 we still would have been the #3 seed, but would have gone into the playoffs well rested without key injuries.

I know hindsight is 20/20 but once a team clinches a playoff birth so early, how valuable is seeding really? The key advantages are home field and a bye. Statistics show the real advantage to home field is the tendency to get less flags at home, but since the refs treat us like the road team either way (we have had more flags against us in our last several home playoff games) I would argue that advtange is useless to us. Sure its nice for fans, but it aint getting us wins. Second is the bye. But 4 games off is more rest than one bye. Sure, the wildcard playoff game is a must win, but if you want win that game with tons of rest how do you expect to win a championship? And then there is the fact that once you clinch a playoff birth, continuing to use your starters does not guarantee gaining home games or a bye. In our case we went 3-1, lost many key players and banged up others, and gained nothing in our seeding.

So lets say we had rested all our starters for 4 games and finished 10-6. We go into Min and we have Davenport, Rankins, and Apple. Michael Thomas does not have a broken hand. Cooks, Kamara, Warford, Armstead, etc are better rested and less banged up. Considering the game already went to OT, I think we win with those upgrades. Then we play Green Bay who Seattle almost beat, after we beat Seattle without Brees. Plus we are better rested. We could win that. Then we play SF. It would be a similar game to the one we lost 48-46 but perhaps extra rest could be a difference, perhaps we would be healthier than a team that played 3 more games than us.

I am not sure my thinking is right but I think its worth considering. There are many other factors. A team resting several weeks could come out cold in the first game or they could play better like many teams after a bye and use the extra time to gameplan better for playoff opponents and keep more trick plays in their pocket. After the first game, the extra rest shoudl be an advantage even for healthy players. Having a worse record could slightly improve draft position given the same outcome, life if you have the worst record of teams losing in the divisional round you draft before teams with better records losing in that round. Playing backups could lead to discovering new stars or monetizing tradable assets in the offseason, but could cause backups to be injured. A team could also start all its backups but keep the option to use starters in the 4th quarter if a win is close or on key plays. The NFL would hate a team using this strategy but good, screw the nfl. Fans would not like it, but if it led to a better outcome in the playoffs they could deal. I doubt we will clinch the nfc south in week 13 next year to try this, but if we do, maybe we should.