On Monday night, Alabama head coach Nick Saban added to his already remarkable legacy with an aggressive coaching decision.  In the national championship game, Saban benched starting quarterback Jalen Hurts — a player who the team was 25-2 with under center and who had thrown one interception in his last 16 games — at halftime of the national championship game. With the Crimson Tide down 13-0, Saban inserted true freshman Tua Tagovailoa into the game, and a couple hours later, Alabama was again national champions and Tagovailoa was the offensive player of the game.

Will any head coach do that this weekend? On the surface, there are three obvious candidates, and four obvious “not gonna happen” situations.

The most concerning quarterback situation is in Philadelphia, where Nick Foles is the starter after Carson Wentz was lost for the season.  If Foles struggles the way he did the last two weeks of the regular season, you can see why the Eagles would consider making a similar switch.

Except Tua Tagovailoa ain’t walking through that door. ^[1]Is this the first time that sentence has been typed before in the history of sports journalism? Philadelphia’s backup quarterback is Nate Sudfeld. The former Indiana quarterback had a great college career and played well in a shootout in a winter game in the Northeast in the 2015 Pinstripe Bowl, the last game of his career.  The weather is supposed to be cold, wet, and windy, so the chances of Foles underwhelming are high. But Sudfeld has played in just one game in his career: he took over for Foles and played the majority of the week 17 loss to the Cowboys, where he recorded zero notable statistics.

The most likely case for Sudfeld playing would be if the Eagles defense dominates in a bad weather game, but Foles makes too many mistakes.  Sudfeld is certainly a lower ceiling player than Foles, but if the Eagles need a game manager and are trying to win a 13-10 game, don’t rule out a switch if Foles commits a pair of turnovers.

A much more interesting scenario is in Minnesota, where the Vikings have not just Teddy Bridgewater but Sam Bradford sitting on the bench in the event Case Keenum falters.  Keenum has played well all season, but against the Saints, the Vikings will need to put up points.

The bigger question: if Keenum struggles, which backup quarterback does Mike Zimmer turn to? Bradford was unavailable for much of the regular season, but reports suggest he will be in uniform on Sunday. And Bradford torched the Saints defense way back in week one. Still, Bridgewater feels like the hometown favorite, and the Vikings crowd would erupt into cheers if Bridgewater replaced a struggling Keenum.  And against the talented Saints defense, you don’t have to squint too hard to envision such a scenario.

Finally, we have the Jaguars.  If Blake Bortles continues to struggle as he has the last three weeks, and the Jacksonville defense keeps them in the game, veteran Chad Henne is on the sidelines and ready for action. The former Michigan quarterback hasn’t completed a pass since 2014, while it only feels like it’s been that long for Bortles.

The likely scenario here would be the Jaguars defense playing well but trailing because of Bortles turnovers. In that case, Jacksonville would need to score to win; last week, the Jaguars were content to gain a total of 30 yards and punt three times on the team’s final three drives as they clung to a touchdown lead. But if Jacksonville is down 13-10 thanks to a Bortles pick six, does Henne enter the game in the 4th quarter?

If I had to guess, I’d say Keenum is the most likely quarterback to be benched, followed by Bortles, and then Foles. What do you think?

Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, and Matt Ryan aren’t getting benched. So that leaves just Marcus Mariota in Tennessee, and it feels very, very unlikely that the Titans would bench him to bring in former Patriot Matt Cassel, who struggled in his only start against his former team. The chance of Cassel appearing are much more reliant on an injury.

Nine years ago, Billy Volek scored the game-winning touchdown for the Chargers in a division round upset of the Colts, but he came in after Philip Rivers tore his ACL. In fact, since the NFL reformatted the playoff system in 1990, no team has ever won in the Division Round after pulling their starting quarterback.

But one team came close. In 1995, Steve Bono was a Pro Bowler and backup Rich Gannon threw just 11 passes. Kansas City went 13-3, but the Chiefs were trailing 10-7 in the 4th quarter against the Colts on a windy, freezing day in Kansas City.  Marty Schottenheimer pulled Bono after the starter threw his third interception of the day and Kansas City was down to its final chance.  Gannon entered the game with just under six minutes remaining and the Chiefs at their own 18-yard line.  He picked up two third downs, one with his arm and one with his legs, and brought Kansas City to the 25-yard line with seconds remaining.  But as every Chiefs fans known: that only set up Lin Elliott to miss his third field goal of the game.