New England Patriots

Bill Belichick to consider resting Patriots starters

Published Dec. 22, 2015 1:57 p.m. ET

foxsports

With just two games to go, the New England Patriots have already clinched the AFC East title and a first-round bye. The only thing left to do is lock up home-field advantage in the AFC, something they can do with just one more win. However, home-field advantage may not be as important as getting key players healthy in time for the playoffs.

Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman are dealing with injuries that could keep them out for the remainder of the regular season. Dont'a Hightower also left Sunday's game with a knee injury, putting his status going forward into question.

With that said, Bill Belichick will be forced to consider resting his starters, something he said they'll "give some thought."

Here's what he said on a conference call Monday, via NFL.com:

If the Patriots beat the Jets this weekend and clinch home-field advantage, there's almost no reason to play all their starters in Week 17 against the Miami Dolphins. Sure, it would improve their record and make their season look better. But that doesn't win Super Bowls -- having healthy players does.

Protecting key players from injury is the best thing the Patriots can do at this point, and it sounds like Belichick will go that route.

We do the best we can to manage all those things [nagging injuries, more serious injuries and players coming back to action]. They're all somewhat of a consideration. We just gotta try to balance it. Each part of the question requires some thought and every decision impacts other things as well. You can't act independently. When one thing happens, there's a residual effect to it one way or another.

We'll just have to do the best we can to balance all those things out. It's something we'll have to give some thought to and get as much information as possible because there are some guys that are in various states of physical health.