Agreed. The Packers absolutely should rest critical players, they can make this a pseudo bye week ahead of the wild card round.
I’m not a Green Bay fan but if I were, I’d be totally in favor of this because I’d want them to get as far as possible in the postseason. And who knows, they could catch fire and make it all the way if things go right and enough folks are healthy.
If Chicago wins, they’re the second seed and host Green Bay for a third game this season.
Inject that straight into my veins.
ETA: The Packers have claimed Trevon Diggs off waivers. Maybe a dead cat bounce to his career?
Regarding injured quarterbacks and this week’s games:
Lamar Jackson was a full participant at yesterday’s Ravens practice, and in a press briefing today, said that he’s expecting to play on Sunday night, in a must-win game against the Steelers (“I’m going to be out there”), and that he “absolutely” wants to continue to play for Baltimore.
Meanwhile, the Packers’ Jordan Love has been cleared from the concussion protocol, but (as expected) will be held out of Sunday’s game against Minnesota. Green Bay is currently planning to start Clayton Tune at QB against the Vikings, with either Malik Willis or newly-signed Desmond Ritter serving as Tune’s backup.
Here’s hoping; it doesn’t look like he’s been particularly effective for at least this past season. Apparently, he and Micah Parsons are good friends.
You never know, sometimes a change of venue brings life into a player.
Phillip Rivers, father of ten, gets five more years of NFL health insurance as a result of his stint
Good for him. Pro players should get free health insurance for life after putting their bodies on the line.
I have mixed feelings about this. You may be right that they should get free insurance for life. On the other hand, Rivers earned $244 million over the course of his NFL career. One would think that he should be able to afford a decent health insurance policy for a while.
True, the stars don’t really need it. It’s more the grunt players who would benefit.
And there’s a lot more of those grunt players than players who break 9 figures. As long as Rivers isn’t getting more of a benefit than those guys, I don’t have an issue with it.
This also seems to be issue whenever CBA talks come up lately. The wealthy vets push for changes that would benefit the younger guys more (higher minimum salaries, reduced requirements for the pension plan, etc), but those younger guys need/want money now, not later, so they push to settle earlier even if costs them in the long term.
Very slippery game in Tampa. So if Tampa wins and Atlanta loses tomorrow, Tampa is in?? Fun ending to fun season anyway.
Correct. Tampa Bay won today and now must hope that Atlanta loses to the Saints tomorrow.
Either the Bucs or the Panthers will be in the playoffs with an 8-9 record, and will host a team from the NFC West.
A team that will have won at least 12 games and possibly 13. Situations like this make you think that the NFL has to change the playoff formatting in some respect.
An easy fix - retain the playoff positions of division winners and wild cards, but seed separately, based on record and other tiebreakers. So a bad division winner is probably the lowest seed.
Relegations! 
There have been four teams with losing records that have made the playoffs (not considering a strike-shortened season).
2010 Seahawks (7-9): won wild-card game; lost divisional round
2014 Carolina Panthers (7-8-1): won wild-card game; lost divisional round
2020 Washington Football Team (7-9): lost wild-card game
2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-9): lost wild-card game
Can’t wait for tomorrow to end it all up with standings. But tonight’s game will be awesome.
The typical counter argument to that has been that some divisions are full of cupcakes (the AFC East for many years) and some have many contenders. So winning a difficult division may result in a strong team with a relatively poor record.
The league has always stressed the importance of winning your division – and, of course, prior to 1970, winning your division was the only way to make the playoffs.
The owners are, AFAICT, still very much of a mind that you should get a home playoff game if you win your division. This same topic comes up every time we have a sub-.500 division winner, and/or two high-win teams from the same division (of which only one can get the division title and a home game).
Divisions with 4 teams (which is what we have now) are probably a bit more likely to yield a division winner at .500 or lower than a 5-team division (which the NFL largely had from 1976-2001).
Correct. The NFL went to 4-team divisions in 2002, and the four sub-.500 teams I noted above were all, of course, after that season.
Seattle dominated San Francisco from beginning to end, even winning the turnover battle somehow, and have clinched the #1 seed and a bye. It should have been 19-3 but Jason Myers missed two FGs (including a chip shot) with the wind like it was. Myers previously made 18 FGs in a row.
Holy crap though, Brock Purdy is tough. His thumb on his throwing hand looked like it was hit with a hammer.