Bill Belichick Weighs in on Pitfalls of Resting Starters the Last Week of the Season

The North Carolina coach offered perspective a hot topic in the NFL world.

Bill Belichick in Dec. 2024. / Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

Given the strength of his New England Patriots teams once upon a time, North Carolina coach Bill Belichick has had to think about resting starters a lot during his coaching career. The conversation dominating the NFL world this week—to rest or not to rest—is not new to him.

However, Belichick emphasized in a discussion with broadcaster Jim Gray and Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh Monday evening that resting starters is not as easy a decision as fans may think.

"It’s tough to go to your team and say, ‘Well, we’re not gonna play you guys over here, but the rest of you get out there. We don’t really care about you. If you get hurt, that doesn’t matter, but these six or seven guys we’re going to protect,'" Belichick said on Let's Go. "You can’t say that to the team. That doesn’t resonate well at all, nor should it. So I always had a hard time with that one."

Chief among the teams presumably engaging in this kind of internal discussion are the Philadelphia Eagles, as running back Saquon Barkley is only 101 rushing yards away from breaking the single-season record.

Whether Eagles coach Nick Sirianni will pull the trigger on resting Barkley is an open question, but it seems clear how Belichick would act.

"To just say, ‘Well, you guys are important, but you other guys aren’t, we don’t care what happens to you. Get out there and play'—that’s not a message I could ever send to the team," Belichick said. "Even though there were people in the organization that wanted me to send that, I just couldn’t do it.”

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