Strategic Rest vs Locking Up The 1-Seed

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00:00John, I would defer to you on this having been in this position more, but I don't want

00:03to see this team take their foot off the gas until they've locked up the one seat and in

00:07game.

00:08If they're up, we've seen them have that luxury a couple times this season where, okay, Hendon

00:12Hooker gets the fourth quarter, gets a couple series.

00:14Jerry golf stays out of harm's way, right?

00:16You want to say you build a three touchdown lead and Sam Laporta is not really involved

00:19as much.

00:20Fine.

00:21What I would worry about is you think you can give Frank a day because it's slowly Jacksonville

00:27or you think you can give Tucker a second week because it's lowly Jacksonville and

00:33you don't have your full offensive line and the run game doesn't harm and Jared golf gets

00:36hit one too many times and God forbid he gets injured.

00:38But what if you lose the game and you only have a one game edge on Philly right now?

00:42I think until you have this one seat locked up and you earn your bi-week and earn a little

00:46extra rest, Hey, if you can go, you will go.

00:51That's kind of how this lion's team is built.

00:53Well, that's how it's built, but it's, is it how it's been operating?

00:58Because we've seen it in previous seasons where it feels like a guy, if he's misses

01:04one, sometimes it's two, but you've kind of feel like he could be back yet.

01:09They buy an extra week and this is a team that has the longest streak going of not having

01:14back-to-back losses.

01:15Now you don't want to have one, so you have to avoid losing that streak.

01:18Is it a great way to avoid back-to-back losses is not having the first one, which they've

01:22been able to do so far this year.

01:25But I am curious as to, have we seen this very much under the radar, Ben, how Dan Campbell

01:31and his coaching staff have been operating throughout their time in Detroit.

01:37So the examples would be Frank Ragnow over the last couple of seasons, strategic rest.

01:41Yeah.

01:42You could even Jonah Jackson last year.

01:43Sure.

01:44The way they run the football is a little bit of load management, Gibbs and Montgomery

01:47taking the load off of each other's plate by splitting the workload.

01:51Yeah.

01:52And so I think there are, if you're reading the tea leaves and that's all this is, is

01:56trying to read the tea leaves of how have they operated before?

01:58Because we don't know how significant or insignificant the injury to Taylor Decker was.

02:03We don't know how significant or not the injury and how bad is the pectoral tear for Frank Ragnow.

02:11We don't know if it's getting worse.

02:13We don't know any of those details.

02:14We know it's certainly not going to get much better during the season.

02:17Decker I believe was back at practice yesterday.

02:18Yes, he was.

02:19Yes.

02:21He's going to play.

02:22He's going to play.

02:23He's not a hundred percent.

02:24Nobody's a hundred percent this time of year.

02:25I expect that Decker would play.

02:26I expect that Ragnow would play.

02:27I expect you want all of them up there because you don't want anything to happen to Jared

02:30Goff and you want to run the ball and you want to take care of business and you want

02:33to deliver another win because each win is going to put them closer to clinching the

02:37ultimate rest for the entire team.

02:39Congrats.

02:40None of you have to play week one of the playoffs.

02:42You have a bye week.

02:44I also think that they handle this on an individual basis and it is simply, they're not looking

02:51at who the opponent is on Sunday because this is a regular season game.

02:54If it was a postseason game, I think that changes the entire equation.

02:58This is a regular season game and they're going to handle Taylor Decker and his injury

03:04for what's best for Taylor Decker over the course of the season.

03:07That's clearly what they have done with Frank and it's going to be a different equation

03:11for injury, for player, for age of player moving forward.

03:16Now if Taylor Decker's injury gets shoulder, don't know what happened, don't know why he

03:21missed last week.

03:22It happened late in the week.

03:24He was in a sling.

03:25That's all we know.

03:27And he returned to practice.

03:29So if you return to practice, I think you're going to play.

03:33The other important return to practice is that the guy we're really talking about here.

03:36Should they rest versus rush?

03:39How should they handle Sam Laporta when you're two touchdown favorites and how much does

03:42the opponent play a factor in that, right?

03:45This is on the heels of me saying it's an individual deal and what's best for the player.

03:50You're playing Jacksonville and here's the thing about Jacksonville.

03:53When you look at them, okay, yeah, they're a team right now that's two and eight.

03:58But before Tua got hurt, they lost at the Dolphins 20 to 17.

04:03That's a tough loss.

04:04Sure.

04:05Browns, before everything all went south for the Browns, they lost by five.

04:10The only team that they've been really blown out by is the Bills.

04:14That was in Buffalo, but they played the Texans tough on the road too.

04:19On the road.

04:20They played the Packers tough at home.

04:22They only lost by three.

04:23The Eagles, as we just heard from Brian Baldinger two weeks ago, they lost by five and were

04:27in position to win that game.

04:29And that was in Philly and they lost the Vikings 12 to seven.

04:34So it's a team that continues to fight.

04:37Yeah.

04:38I think the stat I gave you was six of the eight losses are by one score.

04:40So if you take them lightly, it's an NFL team.

04:43If you sit a couple of key players and play the long game, you may lose the short game,

04:48which is the game on Sunday.

04:51But I also think it's, so when you say sit, it's like, Hey, we don't need you today.

04:55Well, that is part of the discussion, right?

04:57I mean, you said the opponent, how much does it play into it?

05:01That is a question.

05:02Do we need you today?

05:03Do we need you today?

05:04It's how much do we need you today versus how much we need you in week 16?

05:09How much do we need you today versus how much do we need you to be a much better version

05:14of yourself in the NFC championship game?

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