Looking around the NFL last week, a number of other coaches took the same “rest over rust” philosophy that Jon Gruden did against the Panthers.  Peyton Manning hasn’t played the second half of a Week 17 game in nearly a decade and the likes of Tony Romo, Brett Favre and Matt Hasselbeck all spent time posing in baseball caps like Jeff Garcia, rather than taking meaningful snaps.

Take the other view of Sergeant Major Tom Coughlin with his Giants.  He wanted the personal glory of knocking off the 15-0 Patriots and hence left his full squad out there on the field in the Meadowlands.  Three injured starters and a 16-0 record later.  Not that the Bucs are complaining about the likes of Sean O’Hara being out though.

See fans and pundits want it all ways.  Rest the starters and you get criticised. But when one gets injured, and those same people are bleating like sheep about the starters being out there unnecessarily.  Who’d want to be an NFL coach (well, Brian Billick now for one).

Back to the Giants.  We had them over here in London in October for the regular season game with the Dolphins played at Wembley Stadium.  It was a chance to see Tom Coughlin close up and find out if he really is the unfriendlly person everyone thinks he is.  Yes, and more so with it.  I have never come across a more grumpy unhelpful sports coach anywhere in 25 years of reporting.

One piece of news I and all the other British Buccaneer fans were happy about, was the timing of the game for 1pm Tampa time Sunday.  That is a 6pm start time here in the UK which is a lot more reasonable than the potential Saturday 8pm Tampa time that had been discussed.  I’ve done live playoff games for British TV over here that didn’t finish until 4am in the morning, and by that point, you end up saying almost anything with potentially disastrous consequences!