Pulled because they were marginally up in the third quarter, and the coach is protecting the team for the post season. The second string guys got steam rolled.
It's a risk, they already have a playoff spot and home field advantage. Who cares if they would have had a perfect season and have some players injured and lose the Superbowl (cough cough Patriots cough).
I agree though, it would have been nice to see them have an undefeated season and win it all though.
Not that any member of this prestigious forum would place an (illegal) wager on an NFL game but yesterday just proves what a professional gambler once wrote if my memory serves me:
Never bet games for the first two weeks of the NFL season, and neither bet during the last two weeks of the regular season.
So the key problem other than the bad taste and policy issues of basically taking a dive is how do you balance resting up all the players' dings versus can you turn your teams mojo on & off like a faucet? Having the first week playoff bye that the two top seeds each get has been shown to be a definite edge but coasting for three-to-four weeks???
Some trouble in Indy's "near-perfect season", the natives are now restless: