Sit 'em or play 'em?

Kind of bored waiting for sunday and just sitting here musing about the bills game. Different schools of thought on this sort of thing. Sit your stars and keep them from harms way. Make sure everyone is healthy for the playoffs...........or.
Play them so they don't get too rusty. Don't let them lose the taste of blood by sitting 3 weeks.

I'm curious to see how Belichick does it. I say play them unless/until the game is in the bag.
How many times, out of the literally scores of final games, has a star been hurt in the last game when he could have been sitting? It's their job. They do it every week.
I think the opportunity to work on fixing the O line outweighs any concern for players getting hurt. If a start gets hurt, it could cause them to lose the next playoff game. If they don't fix the O line, they will lose the next playoff game.
I see it as more to be gained than lost. They're pretty healthy now and going into the playoffs on a roll is important. Certainly after the last game you can't say the Pats are on any kind of good roll.

Maybe I should have done a poll, but what say you, sit or play?

There's not enough depth to really sit the oline and putting in random pieces certainly won't help anyone. I say work them unless they are really dinged and 2 weeks of rest will get them back up to normal.

Brady should play 1-2 quarters but it'd be good to let Jimmy G play some too.

Buffalo has a solid defensive line not sure about the LBs though. I might sit Gronk just to avoid bad karma (plus, I'd liek to see Brady develop some chemistry with Wright). Edleman can definitely use some more rest. Amendola will get reps, Lafell - well you need somebody out there to catch passes.

All RBs should be eligible as we have depth (even Blount if he is up to it)

As for the defense:
Rest Wilfork some - maybe the whole game - if he'd let you
Ninko could use rest, but I'd give Chandler some solid reps/whole game
Revis/Browner - depends on how dinged up they are

The est seem ok for the most part, maybe just more subbing

Sit 'em. Treat this one like the second pre-season game. A few series for the starters of a certain age and with injuries that need to be shielded from further damage. Play the backups to give them additional game experience and worry not about the final score.

Really hard to tell without inside information. How well is Edelmans melon? How about Lafells shoulder? Is conelly healthy yet? Can't answer these questions with the information Bill mumbles at the press conference. Gonna have to just wait and see.

Here is my thoughts. If things go well we shouldn't get a tough Divisional opponent. We can use that game to tune up for the rest of the post season. I think if they come out a little cold against Indy/Cinci/San Diego they can over come it.

If it is Baltimore/Pitt it could be trickier but the D will hold and i think we can win it late though those be a little hard imo.

New England Pride said:

Really hard to tell without inside information. How well is Edelmans melon? How about Lafells shoulder? Is conelly healthy yet? Can't answer these questions with the information Bill mumbles at the press conference. Gonna have to just wait and see.

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I'd sit Lafell. Shoulders can be a nightmare. An extra week of rest and it could easily be close to fully healed for the divisional round. Pay him, and he is one fall away from making it drastically worse.

I would say start everybody except those with some real ailments...Sit Edelman, I would probably only play Gronk for one series. The others should play a few drives if they are healthy, then bring in the second team. The O line probably does have to stay intact though, as the OP states.

We can get down to the depth receivers though, Amendola can do some work against Buffalo as we all know. And who isn't excited to relive the magical Garoppolo-to-Tyms connection?!

Let the starters play the first half. Selfishly I want Edelman to play just so he can get another 1,000 yard season under his belt, but concussions are tricky man.

Difficult to compare to a preseason game, as the pats only have 53 players to dress.. so there is some depth, but all that much depth to rest these guys as much as many would like..

Then there is two weeks off to heal, before the tournament.

Play 'em.

My personal preference would be to rest everybody that's important to our playoff success. That means Brady, Gronk, Edelman, Revis, McCourty, Jones, Wilfork, and maybe Collins (LB depth might be an issue here) and play the starting OL to let them try work out the kinks that they clearly have while not getting Garappolo killed. We have a good defense which should be able to mitigate whatever "rust" the team may have out of the gates in the divisional round and we have a lot of banged up guys going against a team that has nothing to lose and no reason not to try to hurt our's. That said, Brady sounds like he really wants to play in this one. Given how long he's been behind center and how successful he's been for this franchise, if he wants to play, I suspect he'll play.