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Integrity vs. Tanking? NFL Has a Problem

Jan 5, 2010 – 9:30 PM
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Jay Mariotti

Jay Mariotti %BloggerTitle%

Jim CaldwellThis is not what we prosecutors want right now, more ammunition for the defense. When NFL receiving leader Wes Welker blew out two knee ligaments Sunday, after the New England Patriots had clinched a first-round home playoff game and had little else to play for, it gave two maligned men in Indianapolis the escape hatch they desperately needed.

Kiss, Jim Caldwell said. My butt, Bill Polian said. Resting your best players late in the regular season is more important than momentum, confidence, even the potential for a 19-0 season unprecedented in league history. They haven't come out and said so in emphatic terms, but they don't have to. Their smugness today is larger than Lucas Oil Stadium, the only sports structure I know that is more immense than the rest of a city's downtown area.
Filed under: NFL, Sports

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