I like this idea:


ORLANDO, Fla. -- In an effort to have teams use their top players through the final games of the season, the NFL is considering making the last week -- and possibly weeks -- consist of all divisional matchups.

"Potentially, Week 17 will all be divisional games," commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday during his closing remarks at the NFL Annual Meeting. "That will address this to some extent. It will not necessarily eliminate the issue."

http://www.nfl.com/news/s...nfirm=true

I saw this on ESPN earlier. I understand what he's trying to do
but if you lock your division up and you're playing a meanlingless
game that doesn't improve or hurt your playoff position you should
be able to protect your starters after a quarter or two and not
risk injury to key players.

phunkdaddy said:

The reality is u are NOT going 2 stop this completely but I give the guy some credit 4 trying.

Not that this hasn't been a concern of theirs for a while, but my guess is the decision to act on it may have been promoted by the Jets essentially getting a free pass to the playoffs. I kind of agree with both sides. A team that performs that well should get the rest they earned, but for another team to miss the playoffs because one team basically got 2 bye weeks does suck.

Graycap23 said:

This won't necessarily make any impact. I understand that playing divisional games at the end of the season would make the games more competitive, but what if you have a scenario where the Pittsburgh Steelers or Minnesota Vikings are 15-0 and going for a perfect season, and their final games are against the Cleveland Browns or Detroit Lions respectively? Do you really think Mike Tomlin or Brad Chidress are going to risk getting Ben Rotheslisberger or Brett Favre injured just to have a perfect season? On the other hand, even if they were playing the Baltimore Ravens or Green Bay Packers, if they have home field advantage locked up, they may still rest their players. Now this would screw teams on the bubble like the Eagles, Giants, or Broncos, but the coaches would just say that they should have won a couple of their earlier matchups.

728huey said:

It's not the responsibility of teams that clinched playoff spots to handle another team's business.

uPtoWnNY said:

True. The steelers missed the playoffs this past season because they couldn't
take care of business not because the Colts chose to rest their starters
in a meanlingless game against the Jets.