Colts vs. Titans week 17, 2007

[Buck Showalter]

This game was the last regular season home game in the Hoosier Dome, also a somewhat controversial game as many in the sports world felt like Dungy LET the Titans win to allow them to slide into the playoffs...

I've read a few different opinions on the forum about what/how the Texans will gameplan for the last game of the season, as that game may have similar implications (just different teams) as the Colts/Titans game had in 2007...

So what do you feel about the idea of pulling starters if you have the season/homefield wrapped up, especially if it can conveniently let a division opponent into the playoffs...

An opinion I havent seen mentioned is the idea of "pulling starters/making it easier for a team to win" to make it into the playoffs... Do you want division opponents in the playoffs, as you are more familiar with the team versus facing an opponent you may not be as familiar with???

I personally feel like you should play to win every game & I was bummed the Colts let Tennessee win that game, as they definitely pulled starters too early & "allowed" Tennessee in the playoffs...

anyways, just a thought...

[Boiler_Colt]

The Cleveland Browns were bummed too. They would have been in the playoffs that year if we had beaten Tennessee.

[Buck Showalter]

I am a little foggy on all of the particulars of that play-off scenario, but didn't another team also have to lose for it to go down the way it did for the Titans to get in the playoffs???

[RomanianColtsFan]

It's ironic that now Colts may need Texans not to play their starters the last game of 2012.

[FireJimCaldwell]

I'm not big on letting off the gas as concept.

There are certain players that need more rest due to a little ding or an injury and that is easily understood, but the mass-substitution that the Colts have utilized, I have disagreed with it over time and even more so for when one week your team is undefeated and you take out the starters and put in a quarterback that had no business being in the league much-less seeing action in a game, and then the next week, in the snow no less you leave the starters in just to get receiving milestones.

Obviously as soon as a starter is injured in a "worthless" type situation then some fans are going to scream, but I've always felt that a player could get equally as injured walking down the steps, in an auto accident on the way to the game(which unfortunately we have witnessed). Things happen and injuries happen, and sometimes they can't be avoided.

Who's to say someone doesn't get taken out and hurt when there is a late hit out of bounds going into the sideline.

I think it teaches a slightly different mindset which I can't accurately describe on here, and it's not a mindset you want a football team to have.