Should the Pats be running up the score on everybody in garbage time?

[RunDownHouse]

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I'm sure they don't mind sacrificing the 1/whatever chance of Brady getting hurt via a freak tackle in order to put their team in the pantheon of greatest team ever.

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It's not a "freak accident" if you are directly increasing the chance of said accident. At that point, it's somewhere between "too bad" and "idiocy."

It just isn't possible to estimate how much risk the Pats are assigning to their stars by continuing this policy, but it is easily possible to say that it's more than if they just played other guys in the second half, or didn't run a QB sneak when up 40 in the 3rd, or whatever. It also isn't possible to say whether the team as a whole has embraced the increased risk, or if it's primarily the stars who are shouldering the extra risk that have given the OK, whether it's solely Belichick, etc. However, you can estimate the tangible benefits and come to the conclusion that the whole project is a negative freeroll. If they're lucky, they get to open a bottle of champagne just about every year, like the '72 Dolphins. If they're unlucky, someone gets hurt, with unknowable consequences.

It looks like getting caught cheating has somehow imbued Belichick with a misplaced sense of righteousness, when he should be looking at the cheating scandal with indifference at the least and atonement at the best.