Thursday, December 27th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
Why the Steelers should rest their starters
There seems to be a debate, at least in the Pittsburgh media, about whether or not Mike Tomlin should rest his starters on Sunday, when the Steelers play the Baltimore Ravens in the final regular season contest of the season. The Steelers will be stuck in the fourth place slot in the playoffs as long as the San Diego Chargers win against Oakland on Sunday.
If the Chargers lose, which will not happen considering that San Diego’s backup running backs (Michael Turner and Darren Sproles) could be starting on several teams in the league right now, the Steelers could move up to the third seed with a win.
Considering the chances of the Chargers losing, the Steelers should rest their weary starters against a Baltimore team that is labeling Sunday’s game as their Super Bowl. If Bart Scott is intent on hurting a quarterback, better it be Charlie Batch than Ben Roethlisberger. If Troy Smith wants to expose flaws in coverage, better they be Anthony Madison’s lapses in judgment than Ike Taylor’s.
Furthermore, if the Ravens’ linemen are intent on playing the type of physical, almost vicious, game that the contests between these two teams have been in the past, the Steelers should be extremely careful about playing their starting linemen. The Jaguars have the nastiest front seven in football plus an extremely underrated offensive line that is even more physical than Baltimore’s.
If the Steelers want to improve their extremely slim chances of beating Jacksonville to very slim chances, they absolutely need to be at full health. And getting into a war against Baltimore, a team that thinks this game is for all of the marbles, is absolutely not the right way to go about that.
The Steelers should not be worrying about the upcoming game against Baltimore, but about how they are possibly going to defeat Jacksonville in the wild card round without vital presences such as Willie Parker and Marvel Smith. Wish Mike Tomlin and his players luck. They desperately need it.
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