When the Indianapolis Colts organization decided not to bring back their starters late in a losing cause, I turned off the football game in disgust. Gone was a rare opportunity for Peyton Manning and company to finish 19-0 as undefeated Super Bowl champs.
I wasn’t alone in feeling this way. While some Colts fans immediately dismissed the loss as unimportant in a quest for a second Indiana title, that was largely motivated by the boos the team received at home by Sunday’s crowd—dissatisfaction aimed not at the players, but at the managerial decision to throttle down midway through the third quarter.
There was no guarantee that the Colts would best their opponent that day, the New York Jets, with Manning playing all four quarters. However, the chances a squad of second- and third-stringers would do so were not great. The logic for this strategy rests on a few key assumptions.
This was a meaningless game
Meaningless is as meaningless does, of course, but I think most onlookers would agree that it has to do with the playoffs. I define a meaningless game as one where the final outcome has no bearing on standing.
Traditionally, this is limited to playoff seeding, with the key regular season milestones being:
- playoff berth
- division title
- first-round bye
- home field advantage (ranked order)
In rare cases, there is a historical context as well (i.e. undefeated season, or individual achievement). I would argue the Colts had a responsibility to both their fans and the NFL community to make a go at a perfect season.
While the organization immediately claimed perfection was never on the radar, it is clear that other non-playoff-impacting streaks are “meaningful.” Brett Favre holds the current ongoing record for consecutive starts by the quarterback with 284. He’s got a 6-season head start on Manning, who is second with 191. If that badge of durability and immortality meant squat, the star quarterback for the Colts wouldn’t be taking the field at all.
Injuries will wreck a title quest
The strongest case for resting starters is the threat of injury. The reality of football is that it’s a dangerous game, one where injury is a part of the sport. As a result, the league constantly tweaks rules to try to officiate against injury, and strength and conditioning training is an essential part of a team’s success.
The truth is, though, that the risk for injury perseveres all of these precautions. The number of players seeing time on injured reserve has been consistent over the past half dozen years, around 280 a season. Many injuries occur away from football or in non-contact situations—Kicker Martin Gramatica once required surgery after jumping up to celebrate a successful field goal. If you really want to keep football players healthy, don’t play football.
It is rare when a backup quarterback leads a team to a Super Bowl victory, but late-season injuries at other positions have been a part of other team success stories. Football is a team sport, requiring things to click from top-to-bottom to sustain what can amount to a 25-game schedule and turn it into a title. It is never helpful to lose a talented player, but neither is it a guarantee against victory.
Resting starters is a common strategy
A veteran of 25 fantasy football seasons, I’ve endured this Rest-The-Starters strategy many times before. In fact, it became so common for Buffalo to rest Jim Kelly in the final weeks, our league shortened our season to avoid Game #16 on the NFL schedule. Sometimes, as was the case for many fantasy owners relying on Manning last weekend, that isn’t enough.
The NFL, rightly so, doesn’t care about fantasy titles, just the real deal. The conventional wisdom at the end of the season is to protect against injury and minimize the exposure of your star players. The opportunity to be put in this situation has changed over the years as the NFL has expanded the season and playoff participation.
Until 1975, winning percentage was not a consideration in seeding or location of the 8 best teams. In 1978, the league expanded the season to 16 games and added two more wildcard teams. By 1990, the NFL playoffs had grown to 12 participants, and in 2002 the league realigned to an 8-division format. While these changes have increased the chances of any given team reaching the postseason, it has also created more “meaningless” games.
Among the 378 playoff teams since 1975, only five of them have had potentially meaningless games show up as early as Game #14. Three of those clubs won titles, and the other two made the Super Bowl. That number jumps to 26 for Game #15 and over 90 for the regular season finale. Two-thirds of the estimated meaningless games have come since the expanded playoff format.
Resting starters helps the title quest
The king of the rest ’em strategy is arguably Bill Polian. His organizations—Buffalo (1986-1993), Carolina (1994-1996) and Indianapolis (1997-present)—have produced extremely successful regular season teams, although with very little hardware to show for it.
In making the AFC playoffs six times between 1988 and 1993, Polian’s Bills earned 5 first-round byes, three top seeds, and made (and lost) the Super Bowl four consecutive years. In two of those seasons (’91 and ’92), the club ended the regular season with meaningless games, prompting the club to rest regular starters and maximize the rest they’d get before the next “meaningful” game in the divisional championships. He helped the expansion Carolina team make their first playoffs in 1996, earning another first-round bye but losing just short of another Super Bowl trip.
With the Colts, Polian has an organization about to make their 10th playoff trip in the past 11 seasons, with three first-round byes to their credit. Including this year, the Colts will have closed 5 of the last 6 regular seasons giving their starters a breather. The only season in that stretch where Manning played the finale? The 2006 title run.
If resting starters late was really an important ingredient for championship teams, Polian should have a half dozen Lombardi trophies by now.
Since 1999, six eventual title teams earned first-round byes in the post-season and four of those clubs closed the regular season with meaningless games. Only one, however—the ’99 St. Louis Rams—had their starting quarterback fail to put up typical numbers. In other words, the last champion to successfully employ the Rest-The-Starters strategy came a decade ago.
Resting starters doesn’t hurt the title quest
Although I did sic Wayne Winston on the question of statistical validity of this strategy—I hope to see an article from him on this topic in the near future—some of the circumstantial evidence can still be explored here. There are two ways the NFL gives starters a chance to rest up before the playoffs. The first is by earning a bye, and the second is manufactured by an organization using the Rest-The-Starters strategy.
Top seeds—the clubs with the best record, who earn a bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs—are notoriously ineffective, particularly in the AFC. In the past 33 seasons, only eight Super Bowls have featured the top seed from each conference (the last time was Super Bowl XXVIII). Following the Packers title run in 1996, the best teams of each conference have 32-21 postseason record.
In all, the 66 top seeds made the big game 38 times have won 19 of the 33 possible titles, helped mostly by dominant individual teams in the NFC winning 12 titles in the 1980s and 1990s. AFC top seeds have appeared in only 5 of the past 17 Super Bowls, failing to win at least one playoff game eight times. Since 1984, the AFC top seeds won just two titles (’03 Patriots and ’98 Broncos).
Relying on ESPN’s boxscores available online since 1999, teams facing meaningless regular season finales benched starters 29 times resulting in a 12-17 record in those games. These teams made the big game just 5 times (losing all but once) and failed to win a playoff game 11 times.
Finishing the regular season strong doesn’t matter
Finishing strong is a signature of title teams. Dating back to 1993, only three of sixteen Super Bowl winners have lost their regular season finale. The 1997 and 1998 Denver clubs and the 2007 Giants lost two of their final three games, costing two of those teams first-round byes on their way to their titles.
The sixteen champs collectively finished the final three weeks winning 73% of their games, while the also-rans in the postseason tournament won 67%. In Game #16, however, the champs won 81% of their final games, 14 percentage points better than the other playoff teams.
The 110 non-champs in the previous ten seasons lost their final regular season game 16 times due to resting starters. Those teams had a postseason record of 23-28 with four Super Bowl losses.
Conclusion: The Colts should have played to win
Last weekend’s game was not meaningless, either to the Colts or the Jets, who needed a statistical miracle last week to be able to control their own playoff destiny this week. While I firmly disagree with the contention that playing for history should be so easily dismissed, there isn’t much past production supporting a correlation between resting starters and earning titles. This is a big mistake the organization can never take back.
