To Sit or Not to Sit

First apppeared on December 24th, 2008
in The Lebanon Reporter.

To sit or not to sit, that is the question the Colts must answer. At 11-4, and winners of 8 straight, Indianapolis has already sealed its playoff fate and, coming into this weekend, once again the men in blue face the tough decision of what to do with another meaningless game. Theories abound on how this situation is best handled and it goes without saying there is no obvious right answer. For the Colts only one man knows what will happen for sure on Sunday and that is head Coach Tony Dungy.
As we have seen in the past, when Dungy sits his best he sends a clear message to the rest of the league; for Indianapolis the regular season is over. Over? In the infamous words of Bluto from Animal House “was it over when the Germans bombed Pear Harbor?” Of course in quoting one of the most strangely inspirational movie scenes of all time we are contending this season is in fact not over and the Colts should play their studs against Tennessee, at least for a half.
Time and again history has proven you reap what you sow. When guys play, theoretically they improve (see Peyton Manning’s season this year after missing training camp) and when you sit healthy players it doesn’t take long for rust to develop (see 2006 Divisional loss to Pittsburgh).
Any way you split it this is a no win situation for Tony Dungy. If he doesn’t play his starters and the Colts fail to win the Super Bowl then Dungy obviously made the wrong choice. If he plays his starters and Manning blows his good knee out or Freeney’s bad foot falls off then Dungy is obviously a fool. And to say Tony Dungy is a fool after all he’s done in Indianapolis is like calling politics in Illinois transparent.
With Thursday’s victory over Jacksonville, a Tony Dungy-led team qualified for its 10th straight playoff appearance (going back to his days with Tampa Bay). It marks his 7th in a row with Indy and the 10 consecutive is a new NFL record that allows the Colts coach to ease his way past the “Man in the Hat” Tom Landry. The Colts have also won 11 or more games in 6 straight years. This mark ties them with the 1976-81 Dallas Cowboys for the NFL record and, in case you were wondering, the aforementioned Cowboys were coached by the aforementioned “Man in the Hat”.
With all this in mind it should come as no shock that Tony Dungy (more than anyone else in NFL history) probably knows what he’s doing should he choose to sit his best players Sunday. Pondering his career to this point we are convinced Dungy is most likely part Jedi master, part football coach and for the most part a first class human being. Irregardless of what he decides, Indy fans should just find solace in the fact that he is still the one making these types of decisions in the Circle City.
In all seriousness this is a situation the NFL needs to take a long look at. Over 60,000 fans will show up Sunday having paid full price for tickets to what they expect will be an NFL game. Many will be sporting jerseys of players who will probably never even step foot on the field. Perhaps in the end this is all merely a tremendously complicated ruse by Colts owner Jim Irsay and his merchandising department to boost the sales of their second string jerseys.
The bottom line in all of this is that we are going to be forced to suffer through yet another meaningless game. A game played mostly by a group of well seasoned bench warmers who will most likely be unavailable for a last minute signing in any fantasy football league; which of course renders their participation all the more completely useless. Alas this is the corner the Colts, and more importantly the league, have painted themselves into and it would seem there is no logical way out for either now.