OT: Dungy's code

[jeffro]

I like Dungy OK, but I wonder about something that the announcers of Sunday's SD/Indy game said Dungy told them - basically that Dungy said he felt he owed it to the rest of the AFC teams to play the game to win. My question is: why didn't he owe it to the rest of the AFC teams to play Denver tough at the end of last year (i.e. letting Denver (10-6) in at the expense of 9-7 team holding tiebreaker advantage)?

 

[Fanfrom1960]

I like Dungy OK, but I wonder about something that the announcers of Sunday's SD/Indy game said Dungy told them - basically that Dungy said he felt he owed it to the rest of the AFC teams to play the game to win. My question is: why didn't he owe it to the rest of the AFC teams to play Denver tough at the end of last year (i.e. letting Denver (10-6) in at the expense of 9-7 team holding tiebreaker advantage)?

Let it go, man. They lost, and the best part is they were trying to win!

 

[Miguel]

Correct me if I am wrong. This is the way I remembered Week 17 of the 2004 season. Once the Bills lost their 1PM game to the Steelers, the Broncos clinched a playoff spot before their 4PM game with the Colts.

 

[jeffro]

I'm not positive, but I did find an article that says Broncos had to win to make playoffs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42932-2005Jan2.html

Anyway, I doubt Dungy waited until after the 1pm games were over to decide who his starting QB would be. My feeling is that coaches in his position don't owe the other teams anything. The Dungy "code" thing that they talked just struck me as disingenuous. Who knows, maybe he didn't even say it and the announcers made it up.

 

[alamo]

Assuming the premise of this thread is correct -- I don't think Dungy's reasoning is bad at all.

He feels he owes it to the rest of the league, but noone in the league will hold him to that of it hurts his own team significantly. Last year they had no bye and in fact were going to face Denver again if Denver won, so playing all his starters plus using the full playbook had the potential to hurt the Colts quite a bit, especially if they still lost. By comparison, holding starters out on Sunday would have had almost zero positive effect on the postseason (except for the small chance of injury).