With apologies to Mr. Shakespeare, Pete Carroll will be starring in the lead role of an ersatz version of Hamlet when his Seattle Seahawks take on the Arizona Cardinals in Sunday’s regular-season finale.
To rest, or not to rest? That is the question.
One of the hot topics in the lead-up to Sunday’s game at Arizona has been about how the Seahawks should approach the game. Should Seattle prioritize winning the game, or should the Seahawks instead focus on getting healthy for the playoffs.
Carroll has always insisted upon the importance of playing every game to win, and he continued to say throughout the week that he intends to play his starters — and play to win.
“How can you rest guys?,” Carroll asked during his Monday morning radio show in 710 AM. “We’re playing everybody all the time anyway, doing everything we can to rotate and all that. I think that’s overblown, I think that’s a real media thing.”
But is playing everyone Sunday truly the right decision in the current situation?
The fact is Seattle gains little tangible benefit from winning Sunday’s game. Consider:
1) The Seahawks already clinched a playoff berth, and the only thing left at stake for Seattle is whether the team finishes as the first or second wild-card team in the NFC. While there’s an outside chance having a higher seed could be valuable down the line, it no longer holds much appeal for the first round. That wasn’t the case when it appeared the winner of the NFC East was going to be a basket case, making the No. 5 seed a desirable target. However, NFC East champion Washington has been much improved in winning three straight, while the NFC North teams appear more vulnerable — Green Bay lost five of its past nine, while the Seahawks thumped Minnesota 38-7 on the road just four weeks ago.
2) The Seahawks don’t even control their own destiny. If Minnesota beats Green Bay on Sunday night to claim the NFC North title, then Seattle finishes as the sixth seed regardless of the outcome of its own game and will hit the road to face the Vikings in the first round.
3) Seattle is nursing its share of injuries. The offensive line appears it will be missing two starters, with guard J.R. Sweezy (concussion) out and tackle Russell Okung (calf) doubtful. Safety Kam Chancellor (bruised tailbone) returned to practice this week, but remains questionable after sitting out the previous two games. Defensive end Michael Bennett (toe) intends to play, despite undergoing an injection procedure earlier in the week.
Seattle has little time to recover for next weekend’s first-round playoff game. Doesn’t it make sense to give Chancellor an extra week of rest to get closer to 100 percent for the playoffs? Wouldn’t it be easy to sit quarterback Russell Wilson down, especially with two-fifths of his starting line looking like it will be unavailable to provide protection? Why take chances when it may not mean a thing?
Former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren made just these arguments earlier this week when interviewed on KJR radio, saying if he were in charge he would seriously consider resting his starters against the Cardinals. So it’s not just the talking heads in the media who are espousing this idea.
Carroll remains unconvinced. When he was asked Friday whether the injuries on the offensive line would make him more likely to sit Wilson down, Carroll gave a one-word answer: “No.” Carroll also spent the week talking about the need to get the team back on the right path following last Sunday’s disappointing 23-17 loss to St. Louis, in which the Seahawks appeared to take a step backward, particularly on offense. A train can’t get itself back of track if the engine never pulls out of the station.
“We’re still playing to get ready for the playoffs and make sure we’re right, and we want to keep playing well,” Carroll said. “(The St. Louis loss) is really kind of a throwaway thing, I hope, in the midst of six or seven weeks of improving play and all that. We want momentum, we want to play right. We need to get our game right.
“I think mentally, you either play or you don’t, and we don’t want to not (play),” Carroll added. “We don’t want to open up the door for, ‘When you can let up?’ We’re just going to keep going and keep battling. We’ve been doing this for a real long time and we’re not seeing a reason to change that.”
Carroll isn’t alone in his thinking. Arizona coach Bruce Arians, whose team is already assured a bye in the first round of the playoffs, said he won’t be resting his players this week, either.
And though Carroll stressed the importance of playing to win this week, he left the door slightly ajar with regards to giving specific players a rest should they need it.
“We always are working to make smart decisions, and really the educated decision on what’s best for the players over the long haul,” Carroll said. “We’re always doing that. That’s just part of our thinking anyways, so I think we take all that into account at this time as well.”
So to rest, or not to rest? Only Carroll can make that call. For his sake, one can only hope his decision doesn’t turn into a Shakespearean tragedy.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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