Adam Steele is back again, this time with a look at teams resting their starters over the years. Bless him.

Over the past few years I’ve been documenting the historical instances of teams resting their starters in late season games. I like to remove such games when comparing teams since even a single upside down result can warp a club’s statistical profile (especially since these meaningless games disproportionately affect the best teams in a given season). Now that the 2021 regular season is complete, I figured I might as well share this database with FP readers in hopes that some of you might find it useful or interesting.

As of now the database covers the entire Super Bowl era. Since 1966, there have been 118 games that fit my definition of resting starters. There’s obviously an element of subjectivity in determining which games qualify, but my criteria is simple: any instance of a team not doing everything it can to win a game. This includes keeping starters on the bench, employing vanilla game plans, and giving preseason level effort.

It’s fascinating how the practice of resting has evolved over the years. In the 1980’s and 2010’s teams generally sat their starting QB and other key players, but still gave full effort to win the game with their backups (and sometimes they did win). In the 1990’s and 2000’s there were a lot of teams completely rolling over by sitting starters and barely scratching the surface of their playbooks. In the 1960’s and 1970’s teams usually kept their star players on the field but made little effort to actually win the game. The best example of this is the 1969 Rams; they went 11-1 in games that mattered then got blown out in their final two games despite MVP Roman Gabriel playing the majority of both.

The frequency of teams giving away late season games has stayed relatively steady throughout history, with one exception. From 2004 to 2009 there were 27 instances of resting starters, or a whopping 4.5 games per season. This is what spurred the NFL into scheduling nothing but divisional matchups in the final week of the season. Since that policy was implemented, there have been 2.5 resting games per season.

Anyway, here’s the list. I noted whether the full game was affected by rest or just the second half, and I included the p-f-r boxscore for each game for quick and easy reference. Enjoy!