NFL Playoff Scenarios: Why Packers Would Benefit from Losing in Regular Season

The Green Bay Packers need a little bit of breathing room in a pressure cooker that is getting hotter and hotter by the week.

Lose a game, and lose the incredibly large bull's eye currently plastered across your back.

QB Aaron Rodgers and Co. are currently making 13-0 look incredibly easy with blowout after blowout coupled with the very occasional close game. The media is asking more questions by the day and the story has somehow been able to even trump Tim Tebow in its importance.

The pressure is beginning to engulf the seemingly cool, calm and collective squad, and who knows how they really feel when the camera light isn’t turned on. Nobody in that locker room has ever been in a situation like this and the thought of forever being etched in the history books has to be fully engulfing their thoughts at this point.

If they go 16-0 in the regular season and decide not to sit their starters, they’ll go into the playoffs with the biggest bull's eye on their back since the 2007 New England Patriots. They steamrolled through the competition despite getting each opponent’s best shot, until the Super Bowl.

Everybody remembers the helmet catch, but the Pats were flat for the vast majority of that game. You could tell the pressure had begun to overwhelm them and it culminated in a sub-par effort at the most important time. Chasing history is incredibly draining both physically and emotionally.

The Pack aren’t as good as that Patriots team because of their weak running game (27^th in the NFL) and a pass defense that gives up yards in bunches and relies on turnovers each and every week. They have flaws and putting all of the additional pressure on the team is going to make it that much harder.

Obviously, the players want that record, and I’m sure every single fan does as well, but with the last two games of the year coming against division rivals Chicago and Detroit, there is no need to match their physicality and urgency. Both teams will likely be fighting for their playoff lives and would love nothing more than to be the team to spoil this dream season.

The Pack should care less about their younger brothers in the NFC North, and sit their key players assuming they clinch the No. 1 seed this week against the hapless Chiefs. The only thing the Packers need to be focused on is how to beat the New Orleans Saints again at the end of January and the Ravens in early February.

If they lose to the Bears in Week 16 without Rodgers, sure fans would be upset, but I’m pretty sure the whole Brett Favre saga proved that this organization doesn’t care what the fans think when they make a move looking towards the future.

And that future is just a few weeks later. Getting their bodies’ fresh, as well as their minds, is the smartest decision right now for Green Bay.

18-1 with a second consecutive Super Bowl win sounds a lot better than 18-1 with a playoff loss to the Saints.