Thursday night games are not fun for NFL coaches or players, but the one benefit is a few days off after such a busy and demanding week full of two games.
The Washington Commanders entered Week 10 with two difficult games on their schedule. On Sunday, they’d host the 6-2 Pittsburgh Steelers, followed by a Thursday night football date with the 7-2 Philadelphia Eagles.
The Commanders have yet to have their bye week and are a little banged up currently. Washington ruled out starting running back Brian Robinson Jr. for the second straight game on Sunday, as well as newly acquired cornerback Marshon Lattimore, kicker Austin Seibert, right tackle Andrew Wylie and offensive tackle Cornelius Lucas.
So, that made some wonder if the Commanders were purposely sitting some of these players to give them a few days of extra rest until Washington played Philadelphia in a battle for first place in the NFC East.
Head coach Dan Quinn insisted that was not the case.
“Was not. Nope,” Quinn said after Sunday’s loss to the Steelers. “It was all relative to this game, and everything was just for this week.”
NFL teams aren’t in the business of playing for next week. You only have 17 regular-season games and all of them count. Sure, there is a little more emphasis on those division games, but the goal remains to win as many games as possible.
Is it possible that the Commanders didn’t want to risk further injury if a player was close? Sure, but that’s not the same as purposely sitting these players and holding them until Thursday. In fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise if some of these injured players missed Thursday’s game, too.