Should hurt players sit ?

[gueli]

Donavan McNabb comes to mind, but this is one of those things- is the team that better off with a player at 70 - 80%, or would they be better sitting and getting healthier for the rest of the season.
This question assumes that they are walking wounded- definatly hurt (2-4 week range), but not so severly hurt (severe knee damage for instance, or an injury like brian urlacher (sorry if I butcher the names))
What would you want your team to do ?
:mickey:

[kakn7294]

I think it all depends. There are a large number of factors that could affect this answer - how valuable that player is to his team, what position he plays, whether him playing injured is still better than his back up at 100%, team dynamics, the team's position in the playoff race, etc. In your example of Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick is now his backup but is suspended for this upcoming game. I don't know who the next guy in line would be and how good he is. If he's a marginal player, it might be better to play McNabb if the line can be counted on to protect him from further injury. However, if the line is going to let McNabb get hit multiple times, it might be better to sit him and play even a marginal player in order to protect him for the future. I don't know enough about the Eagles to say how this should actually play out for real though.

[BigRedDad]

The way I see it, they are all over paid. Their job is to go out there and play if they can. People can argue that it is not right to push a player through the pain, but he is making about $500k a week. Is he willing to give that up if he can't play?

To me, it is ridiculous in sports for the salaries. The NFL players are whining because they want more than 59% of the revenue. There are only 53 players on the roster and there are thousands of employees for any given team. I would rather watch scabs play for far less money than the whiny players that make $6M+ to sit on the bench.

[Ian]

Yeah, well when you happen to be one of the only 1,664 people on Earth out of the approximately 6 billion people on the planet who are capable of playing in the NFL, you're entitled to whatever the market is willing to pay you.

But since that's not the topic at hand, let's move on ...

I generally think it's in the best interests of the team to sit a player when he's hurt until he is fully healed. My personal opinion is that it's a rare circumstance where an injured player who's only at maybe 50% or 60% of his normal ability is going to help your team more than his backup who's 100%.

[Lizzy]

I agree with Ian. That is the reason for backup players, to have someone at 100% in case your starter goes down.

The other scenario is that if they are out there playing with an injury, they stand the chance of further injury on the already weakened area. This could be far more devastating to the team than having the player sit out.