Should the G-Men Go Full-Throttle vs. the Pats?

With the 38-21 victory in Buffalo today, the New York Giants clinched their third playoff berth in as many years. The Vikings loss to the Redskins tonight also means the Giants are locked in the playoffs as the NFC's fifth seed. They will travel to Tampa to play the Buccaneers, most likely in the Saturday wildcard primetime slot in two weeks.

Most importantly, the victory today means that the Giants will not have to knock off the undefeated New England Patriots this Saturday to ensure themselves a trip to the postseason. The Giants can either go full throttle to try and make NFL history or they can elect to rest some of their injury ridden players for their matchup with Tampa Bay. This has already been a hot issue of debate, but now that this scenario is a reality, expect it to beaten to death this week on sports radio, ESPN, etc.

As a historian of the NFL and wanting to see history earned in a competitive way, I would love to see the Giants challenge the Patriots and make them earn win number 16. However, the Giants should not be expected to do so, as they do not owe it to the NFL to risk injury that could seriously hamper their chances in the playoffs. Teams that clinch playoff spots with games remaining on their schedule have earned the right to decide whether they want to rest their players or not. Even if that game has playoff implications for the opponet (i.e. Tennessee vs. Indianapolis next week), or in this case with NFL history on the line.

For someone who is anticipating this game without my team involved, I would like to see the Giants play the game by giving it all they have to win. I can understand if they rest high injury risks like Plaxico Burress or Brandon Jacobs, but I hope they play Eli Manning, Amani Toomer, and the big play makers on defense. It will make for, potentially, some great drama on Saturday night.

However, I am not a Giants fan, so I don't have a team I'm emotionally tied with in the game. If the Jets were in this position, I would want the coaches to stress that the playoffs are the most important thing. I would love to play hard and try and win the game for a historic place in history, but a playoff win would be much more important to me. If the head coach feels the best way to win that playoff game is to rest and not risk having his players spending an exuberant amount of energy and emotion on a meaningless game then I would respect that. It is very possible if the Giants go full throttle against New England it will have no effect or even a positive effect on how they play against Tampa Bay. However, there are many instances where a team has an emotional letdown after a game that is deemed as HUGE! And should the Giants play New England full throttle, then the coaches would be sending their players the message that this game is huge.

This will be a great issue of debate this week, and ultimately we should agree with what the majority of Giants fans feel. We would want that respect if it was our team.

Pat Morgan