Man, I’ve been extremely busy all week checking out the NFL Week 5 inactives. Every Sunday morning I make sure to get up early enough to get all the updates and see how it affects my fan team. When I woke up and saw the reports for inactives all I could do was shake my head. There were some big names who were being left out of some important matchups.
I knew that the following teams would have some key players missing, like the Chargers with Rontae Johnson, the Cowboys with La’el Collins, and the Eagles with Rasul Douglas. All these three teams had to adjust their rotations due to the absence of these important players. I could imagine how many coaches had to change their game plan and shuffle around players.
On the bright side, the Steelers took on the Falcons having all their defensive line starters while the Steelers offensive line was mostly intact with Kevin Dotson and Chukwuma Okorafor not in uniform for Atlanta. It made me so proud of the team especially since the Steelers have had numerous injuries in the recent years.
As the day went on, more and more inactives were announced and I saw some of my favorite players being benched. Ryan Tannehill wasn’t going to play in the Titans’ game, Josh Allen wasn’t playing in the Colts’ game. At this point, I didn’t know what to think. One part of me was disappointed, but the other part, the one that watches football with analytics, was grateful. These teams had their hands full and to adjust to losing their star players was no easy feat.
Like I said earlier, I couldn’t shake the fact that some of my favorite players were missing this week. I wondered what it would have been like to have their performances. Would the Jets have had more of a chance if Sam Darnold had played? Would the Lions have put up more of a fight against the Packers if Matthew Stafford sat out? Too many questions whirled around my head as I called up some of my friends trying to make sense of it all. Everyone had a different opinion and theories for why certain teams ended up in the inactives list and it just made me all the more determined to watch the games and analyze the results.
The answers to all these questions would be revealed soon enough when the games kicked off. I looked forward to seeing which teams would adapt or collapse without their star players and how the weeks’ inactives would affect the rest of the season. It felt like the fate of each team hung in the balance that Sunday.
At the end of the week, there was no clear cut winner in terms of who got the most out of their inactive players. The Los Angeles Rams had a late lead against the San Francisco 49ers, yet it was taken away as the 49ers won in overtime. The Buffalo Bills put up an amazing performance against the Titans despite Josh Allen not playing. The New York Jets, on the other hand, were not so lucky as they lost to the Denver Broncos with Sam Darnold sidelined.
But what I did take away from this week was the importance of having depth on teams. The NFL is all about finding the right balance between talent and chemistry and teams who can master this combination excel. This week’s inactives highlighted the importance of each player on a team and the importance of each role in their own way. Nobody should be looked over and it’s important to remember that there is strength in numbers.