Kansas City and Pittsburgh are definitely using fill-in quarterbacks. Other teams are considering it. Is there any value in trying to roll in Week 17 with a second-string player under center?
I tend to think not. It would be a tricky balancing act to on the one hand hold out key players while at the same time sell the remainder of the roster on the notion that the game still means anything. And if guys like Patrick Mahomes and Ben Roethlisberger are being held out, how much work is being put into the game plan anyway?
Andy Reid has been down this road many times in the past. Five times previously as a head coach he’s gone into Week 17 with the game being meaningless, choosing to insert his backup quarterback. None of those players threw 2 TD passes, and only one of them passed for more than 202 yards (Mahomes, when he was a rookie backup behind Alex Smith).
If I were playing in a Week 17 game, I wouldn’t be giving any thought to the idea of trying to plug in Chad Henne or Mason Rudolph with any realistic hope of getting top-20 quarterbacking numbers.
| ANDY REID'S SEASON-ENDING FILL-IN QUARTERBACKS | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Starter | Opp | Score | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int |
| 2004 | Koy Detmer, Phi. | Cin. | L 10-38 | 17 | 31 | 202 | 0 | 2 |
| 2010 | Kevin Kolb, Phi. | Dall. | L 13-14 | 18 | 36 | 162 | 1 | 3 |
| 2013 | Chase Daniel, K.C. | at S.D. | L 24-27 | 21 | 30 | 200 | 1 | 0 |
| 2014 | Chase Daniel, K.C. | S.D. | W 19-7 | 16 | 27 | 157 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | Patrick Mahomes, K.C. | at Den. | W 27-24 | 22 | 35 | 284 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | Chad Henne, K.C. | LAC | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Note, by the way, that John Wolford doesn’t fit this profile. In the case of the Rams, they’re not just putting their backup quarterback on the field to take the week off. In that case, the change is injury-driven, with the team still very much interested in winning the game.
—Ian Allan