To Rest or Not To Rest: Super Bowl Preview

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana

Any fan and member of the Colt organization familiar with this quote hoped to prove this wrong. The 2005 season started out 13-0, they clinched home-field, and after a loss decided to rest and get healthy for the playoffs.

This season started similar, the circumstances of their first loss were different, but the team chose rest over wins down the stretch after everything was clinched up. Both teams finished 14-2 and had home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. One team lost in the divisional round and the other team is playing for the Super Bowl.

Can we finally get rid of the debate over to rest or not to rest? The Saints and Colts have been the best teams all year and it is good to see that they get to play for the ultimate prize. These teams decided to rest key players down the stretch risking the possibility of getting out of sync. The reward (health) outweighed the risk (rust).

This year seemed to prove the importance of rest and teams will continue to follow this way of thinking in future years. Just remember that the story is always easy to tell in hindsight. Don’t forget that San Diego, Arizona, and Cincinnati were also teams who chose to rest players and they will be watching the game at home.

I guess the next pointless debate will come if the Colts end up winning the Super Bowl. The question of what if Caldwell didn’t pull his starters will soon arise. Articles will be written about how they could have been the only team to win the Super Bowl and go undefeated in a 16-game season. I have to admit that that would have been great to see but no need to play the “What If?”

With all that being said, I still can not pick against the Colts. The reason is simple: Peyton Manning. After struggling early in the Jets game, the Colts made the necessary adjustments and picked apart that dominant Jets defense.

He beat the blitz with quick throws, picked apart any coverage the Jets decided to play, and threw his wide receivers open in man-to-man situations or his guys just simply beat their man. His preparation and skill is unmatched so I am anxious to see what type of blitzes Gregg Williams will throw his way.

Coach Williams will need to have something new because there is no blitz Manning has not seen. I remember hearing Dick LeBeau say he usually saves one or two blitzes for a game of this magnitude. I would be willing to bet Manning will be prepared for everything the Saints have showed this year so Williams may need to add a new wrinkle to his defense.

Colts offensive coordinator Tom Moore and Peyton Manning’s check-with-me offense has beaten the test of time. It is a simple offense where the coach will give Manning a number of plays and Peyton will choose which he feels will work best. You need to be intelligent and prepared to run this style of offense and Manning is exactly that.

Tom Moore has been running this type of offense as a coordinator since Tony Dungy was his quarterback at Minnesota University in the '70s. There is a reason it has been successful for this long; it works. 

Just by looking at the adjustments made in last week’s game against the Jets defense, I do not think they got fazed by anything. On the other side of the ball, the Colts speed on defense will be able to match up nicely with the Saints speed.

The defense has been proving people wrong and absolutely shut down the No. 1 rushing team last week. This week they will need to shut down Drew Brees and company. They generate pressure with their front four, have speed at linebacker, and are solid in the back end.

I know I am not going out on much of a limb here but I just do not see the Colts losing this one. More important, it is rare to have the top seeds playing in the Super Bowl so I just want to see both teams play great.