re: Should NFL teams that can’t make the playoffs shutdown their star players?

I think Cam should have sat the last game against the Saints

This is where something that might be okay under limited circumstances gets taken to its logical extreme and ruins everything. The integrity of the game requires everyone involved make their best effort to win. If not for that, the whole facade comes tumbling down.

Sit a guy if he's legitimately hurt or needs rest. Not if he 'might' get hurt in a meaningless game.

I thought this mentality might spread but it's happening faster than I expected.

Why even play the game? Just forfeit the remaining games to keep all players healthy? i mean if we are truly worried about player safety this should be standard practice.

Surely you’re able to comprehend the difference between an athlete in college not playing in a bowl game to protect his investment versus a professional superstar athlete that is being paid hundreds of millions of dollars to do a job, right? Shirley you cant be insuating that the two are even related, right?

yes

It really depends.

A rookie who needs experience like Baker Mayfield should be out there for development unless he's hurt.

An established guy who's healthy, probably not. You can still build for the future by having core guys out there working together. Freak injuries happen in practice too.

Someone who's injured, sit em. There's no reason to risk exacerbating an injury if you're out of the playoff hunt.

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I think a more interesting question will be what do Chicago and Minnesota do in the last week of the season if Chicago is going to be stuck in the 3 spot win or lose and Minnesota is going to be stuck in the 6 spot win or lose. How do you approach that game when you are looking at a rematch in the playoffs the very next week?

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This will be interesting to see how it plays out because I believe this is a very likely scenario. Although, chances are the Bears will have the #3 seed locked, but Minn will still need to win to secure the 6 seed.

In this case, you have to sit anyone that is banged up. You will have to play starters because of roster limits, but there are measures you can take to limit reps. I.e., dress 8 o-linemen and build in a drive-by-drive rotation. Also, from a game plan perspective, you are basically playing to milk the clock and run as vanilla of a game plan as you can. I'd run a strictly cover 2 Def with a handful of basic plays on offense.

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hope sitting starters never becomes commonplace in the NFL unless it's the last game of the season and there are zero playoff implications attached to the game.

The commissioner's office should not allow noninjured players to sit out games.

Suppose team A and team B are battling for the last playoff spot. Team C, has been eliminated. Team A played team C with team C going full tilt for the win with all their stars. Now it come down to the last weekend of the season and team B is playing team C and team C is sitting three or four main players.

The league is done if this is allowed to be common practice

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teams have to be able to make the decisions that benefit them and their interests over that of the league

All contracts should be incentive driven.

Unless an independent doctor confirms an IR type injury or an injury requiring test and shutting down then the player should play based on incentive laden contracts.