I had a pretty profitable day at the sportsbook betting on the Giants to beat Tampa Bay yesterday. Now I'm no football analyst - and I'm certainly not a betting handicapper. So when and how did I know Tampa Bay would lay a stinker in their loss against the Giants? I knew way back on December 30th, immediately after hearing that Tampa Bay was resting their entire starting lineup in their 31-23 loss to Carolina in anticipation of their first round playoff game against New York.
It's hard to understood this theory of resting players. Resting key players generally sends a bad subliminal message to all involved. It's a message of fear (and we all know fear is not a good emotion when it comes to football.) Coaches are afraid their star player might get hurt in a "meaningless" game situation. But they're more afraid of the media outcry and the storm of controversy they'd be subjected to if an injury or a freakish play would occur in that game. So they decide to "play it safe" by avoiding the possible situation entirely. What they fail to understand is that "playing it safe" and resting players disrupts routines and usual habits that athletes thrive on (and need) in order to achive peak performance.
Take it from someone who's played his share of collegiate sports: nothing will throw a player into a slump faster than needless resting.
Why do you think wildcard teams in baseball perform so well in the postseason, many times winning the World Series against heavily favored opponents? It's because every late-season game means something to the wildcard hopeful. All the starters play. The pitching rotation never gets altered. Managers manage to win, not to avoid possible injuries to their stars. In short, they overcome fear. In baseball, teams who traditionally lead their division by a large margin and clinch early rarely perform well in the playoffs, and it's because they form bad habits due to lack of urgency. These bad habits, including the resting of key players for no real reason - after all, does a 25 year old baseball player really need to rest? - almost always leads to slumping performances.
That's how you knew the 2003 Minnesota Twins, heavily favored and winners of 90 games while clinching first place early in the AL Central, had no chance against the Yankees in their postseason series in which they lost in 4 games while scoring a total of 6 runs in the entire series. The last weekend of the regular season saw the then hapless Detroit Tigers, en route to the worst record in baseball history, come into Minnesota and took 3 of 4 "meaningless" games when Twin's manager Ron Gardenhire decided to "rest his starters" so they'd be ready for the playoffs. So much for that...
And that's just one example. It happens all the time in just about all sports. You can't just turn it off and on. You need to play every game to win - every day! Otherwise, bad habits develop very quickly - and these bad habits just don't go away overnight.
If you don't have that "win now" attitude in sports (or in life for that matter) success will constantly elude you. I'm amazed at all the sportswriters and analysts who actually support this crazy notion of resting players (most of course, have never played professionally). And speaking of professionals, we don't needlessly rest at our real estate office. We understand the media's manipulatization of fear. We "play to win" every day and aren't afraid of some far-fetched scenario where something "might happen". Here's your two best bets in Vegas: contact us for our take on the Las Vegas high rise condo market - OR - find a nice rested football team, and head to the nearest casino.
...And don't even get me started on the "Prevent Defense"
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