What Should the Colts Do?

Now that the Indianapolis Colts have lost a game, the big question is how Tony Dungy should have his team play out the rest of the season. It is a big question.

There are some strategies that different people favor. I am going to lay out three of the popular ones.

1. Play your team as much as if they were still fighting for a playoff spot.

This is preferred by some people because the feeling is that a team needs to keep their edge and their wits as they move toward the playoffs. At the same time, critics will say that any chance of your starters getting hurt in meaningless game time is a waste.

2. Another school of thought is to rest them. Period. Nobody of importance plays because you don't want them to get hurt.

This strategy throws the team chemistry thing out the window. The thought is that a team was a team all season and will be prepared to re-ignite that chemistry as soon as the playoffs begin. The point is that all the players who got us here throughout the season, need to be here healthy when we hit the playoffs.

Finally, we have the third option.

3. The starters are going to play a little bit and then rest after some point in the game.

This is the half-way house between the first two points. A coach thinks that he can send out his squad for a few series - maybe a couple quarters - and then they can sit out the rest of the game to avoid getting hurt.

So, if you had to choose between these three strategies, which one would you choose if you were running the Colts?

I think there are some serious flaws with all of them. I think that playing your team hard is probably my favorite strategy because I want my team to be sharp when they get to the playoffs. How many times have you seen a team's playoff run ended because they weren't ready to compete in the first quarter of their playoff game?

Article Author: Craig Lyndall

Craig Lyndall writes about all things related to Cleveland sports for WaitingForNextYear.com.

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