Succeeding in the NFL (and in many other endeavours) is often about talent, hard work, and mental toughness. But success also has a lot to do with planning and preparation.
NFL teams plan out their weeks leading up to a game down to the minute. Apart from one off day for the players, everything else is regimented. Nothing left to chance. That’s why bye weeks are so crucial and why playing on a short week (less than seven days after your last game) can be so detrimental.
There’s a reason teams generally win after their bye week, when they’ve had an extra seven days to prepare.
And it’s not just about the planning and preparation. Every day of rest between games is monumental. Especially when you get to the latter stages of the season like the playoffs, when every team has injuries and every player is dealing with a little something or other.
When it’s a crucial game, teams should be playing on equal footing, ie: they should have the same number of rest days. The NFL noticed that in recent years, and to rectify that, removed the Week 18 Monday night game. With everyone playing on Sunday, no teams would be playing on a short week for Wild Card weekend.
However, Hall of Fame coach and NBC broadcaster Tony Dungy pointed out that with the addition of the third Wild Card team and the sixth game on Wild Card weekend, the NFL has created the same scheduling snafu, just one round later in the playoffs.
Monday night Wild Card game creates a rest disadvantage for Divisional Round
Dungy noted that there are teams in both conferences that will be at a disadvantage for the Divisional Round because of poor scheduling that he believes is more concerned with ratings than with fairness.
“NFL playoff scheduling is not fair. It might produce good ratings but it’s not fair. This late in the season recovery time is crucial and it is not given equally,” Dungy began.
“Rams & Bears played Saturday games. They will face each other on Sunday with an extra day of rest,” Dungy wrote on Twitter on January 12. “49ers played on Sunday and will face Seattle on Saturday-short week of recovery. Why?”
Dungy went on to point out that there are similar issues in the AFC as well, most notably concerning the winner of the Monday night Wild Card game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Houston Texans, the winner of which will take on the New England Patriots, who played on Sunday, thereby giving them a rest advantage over their opponent.
“In the AFC the Bills will have to travel to Denver on a short week. Why? Because there’s a Monday night AFC Wild Card game,” Dungy said. “The Texans play Pittsburgh. The winner will automatically have a short week and travel to New England. Why?”
Thankfully for Pittsburgh and Houston, they have both played very well when given a rest disadvantage this year. The Steelers are 4-1 straight up in those scenarios and the Texans are 3-1. The Panthers also had a rest advantage over the Rams for Wild Card weekend, and Carolina still lost.
Nonetheless, it’s certainly a scheduling quirk that would irk many a coach that has to go into the stadium of a higher seed as an underdog while also carrying a one-day rest disadvantage.
Whether the league addresses it remains to be seen. But best believe any team that does get a rest disadvantage because of the scheduling will be well aware of that and feel very hard done by.
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