Jets-Colts... Playing to win... it's a matter of integrity

[withoutatout]

Remembering last week's Jets-Colts game...

What is wrong with intentionally losing a game? Who cares if you pull your top players from a close game when you already have the season locked up in terms of playoff positioning?

Who cares? The players care. The fans care. The opposing team cares---it is disrespectful to them. Other teams care because their playoff positions could be affected by your actions.

Forget the fundamental rule of sports, and you violate the integrity of the game. And what is that fundamental rule? You play to win.

[Hilljacademics]

I'm a hoosier but I am not a Colts fan. Having said that, it's the WAY the Colts did it that leaves me. I was listening to the Dan Dakich show on ESPN1070 The Fan out of Indy on Monday morning and this one caller explains how he's a father of 3 kids and how they had to walk 6-8 blocks to get to the game, in a SNOWSTORM, potentially to see a part of history staying alive. He wasn't happy at all. He also went on to rant about Colts play-by-play man Bob Lamey chastizing the Colts fans on the air for booing the coach's decision to pull the starters. Knowing Bob Lamey is about 500 lbs., the caller had to ask, "Do you think Bob Lamey has to walk 6-8 blocks to do the play-by-play?". That was classic.

The Colts had a 15-10 lead with approx 5:36 left or so in the 3rd quarter when hell broke loose. If it was 15-10 Jets, I can relate to that better. Even with Cauldwell and Polian 'revealing' their hand during the week, there wasn't a soul at that stadium who thought it would happen when Manning came back after the Jets' kickoff return. I will say this: I made a chancy investment on the Colts when it was @ -3, and lost...I won't cry about it, but rest assured I have the ability to bounce back from that poor investment. That caller on Monday can NEVER bounce back from his.

[slacker00]

The Colts are playing by the rules. The NFL needs to change the rules if they don't like this type of behavior.

What the NFL should do is only set 14 of the games in stone before the season. Then have 2 flex games at the end of the season where every team would play in conference according to their conference standings: #1 vs #16, #2 vs #15, ..., #7 vs #10, #8 vs #9 for flex week 1 and #1 vs #15, #2 vs #16, ..., #8 vs # 10, #7 vs #9 for flex week 2. That way, the teams that already clinched can go ahead and play (or rest) against the weakest and most irrelevant teams and the ones on the bubble could face each other in a variety of pseudo playoff type games.

I see a lot of benefits to this system, namely that we get an extra "pennant race" for seeding because standings after week 14 will determine the games in weeks 15 & 16. The main drawback is that the elite high-profile teams will be stuck in very meaningless games, which is a major drawback from the business standpoint of selling tickets and commercial sponser airtime.

[TheSchafe]

As a Jet fan, I'll gladly take a win if our opponent is willing to give us one. We've giftwrapped quite a few this year as it is...