From what Im hearing and reading....I cant see how that is the case at all. The Chargers went from winning 11 in a row...having receivers that averaged over 7 feet. The Chargers were an unstoppable offense. Thats the past. Since we beat them...they have become a soft defense with a qb that rattles easily. The offense has now, no running game...no receivers worth a grain of salt except Gates. That seems to happen to teams that play us...it sounds like a carbon copy of how the Bengals were described after we beat them. From all I have been hearing...we lucked out so far in the playoffs playing the 2 worst teams that have ever entered the tourney.
mmmm....Im going to have to disagree with you...very much in fact. While I agree with your comparison about the Bears, there are many things that would change the Colt future should you lose this game. The coaching staff and front office, again, decided to dump a couple games at the end of the season in order to be fresh for the playoffs. Forget about the fact that they let in the team that might knock them off. Im not going to even play that angle...there was no way they could ever imagine they would be playing the Jets again. They decided to take off the last 2 games...and then have a bye week...and not play a real football game after fighting tooth and nail to go 14-0. Unlike past Colt teams...this team was not one that blew out teams all year long. They played many tough games won in the 4th quarter. No matter what happened last week with the win over the Ravens, that decision doesnt look good until they at least get to the Super Bowl. If they lose this week...the front office and coaching staff will have the fan base at their throats for allowing a team to stay in it and eventually take them down (unfairly as I mentioned before) and to have a perfect record thrown out the window...along with their momentum. Yeah...they did beat the Ravens last week...but I think you would even agree that it wasnt a particularly sharp effort. From the Jet standpoint the first 48 hours would be tough to swallow...with all the talk and bravado from the coaching staff to some players...but within a few weeks that talk will easily lead to needing a better pass rush from the front 3...and waiting for their qb to catch up with the rest of the offense in order to get back here in the very near future.
Don't mistake pressure on the front office for making the decision for pressure on the players, who didn't like the decision in the first place. Bill Polian isn't suiting up this weekend, and the fans really like Caldwell and the changes he has made, win or lose. BP is pretty much untouchable. He and Manning are probably equal parts of why we've been winning this decade. If anything, there is probably less pressure on the players now than there was 5 years ago. Most of the key guys finally got over the hump once. We've been down the playoff fizzle road before. We aren't a dominant team, despite our 14-0 start, like we have been before. Being a member of that fan base, I can tell you that if we lose, the fans will realize that resting those final two weeks will have nothing to do with losing in the AFC Championship, even if it was to the team we supposedly "let in" to the playoffs. If there was a pressure game due to the rust argument, it was last week. We didn't play great, but we played better as the game wore on. I was worried about the first quarter of that game more than anything else. I have NEVER liked the "take time off to get healthy" argument. We generally play like crap in the first half of the game coming off the bye week, and that should tell the FO not to mess with the rhythm of the team right there. If we lose Sunday, those of us that follow the team understand that the pressure of going into that game at 17-0 (assuming we didn't take the last two weeks off and won both games--which isn't a gimme) would have probably been too much for this team anyway. The fan base is pretty sophisticated, but fair. Favorites lose in the playoffs due to it being a one game deal. The fan base is not as cut throat as it is out East. The local sports media (Kravitz) might be critical, but it's only because they need to find something to write about. If anything came out of the rest argument, it is an extra bit of motivation among the players who were pissed that management didn't let them go for it. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, what would I know only being a member of the fan base that is supposedly going to mutiny against the players/FO/Coaches if they lose.
