NFL Network’s Steve Smith says the Packers should avoid playoffs to say goodbye to play and get paid

The Packers are competing for the NFC top-ranked, which will guarantee them in Round One a goodbye and home field advantage throughout the conference qualifiers. Former NFL recipient Steve Smith thinks this may not be helpful to Green Bay players, but not for the reason he thinks.

Speaking at the end of the first half of the Bels Broncos game on Saturday, the former Panthers star scored two points: First, he indicated Green Bay (10-3) is in a groove and it might be better not to take a week off. Smith then concluded his argument by stating that the packs may “play and take money”.

“You don’t get a playoff game if you don’t play this week, so you just sit down and don’t collect any money,” Smith said on the NFL Network. “Let me play and get paid.”

One problem: Smith is wrong about money. Players will be paid even if they have a first round, which is new under the NFL’s 2020 qualifying rules.

More: Explain NFL’s Expanded Qualification Rules

for every NFL Collective Bargaining AgreementGreen Bay players would get $ 30,000 each, which is equivalent to the players’ share of the wild card teams.

Overall, though, NFL players are likely less interested in checking out the first round of qualifiers than about winning the Super Bowl. The path required for Green Bay definitely depends on what gives it the best shot in the Lombardy Cup.

“The way they play in the second half of the season is really good for them, so slowing down and waiting for the next opponent isn’t playing well for them. I’d rather be one of those teams, while we’re rolling, I’d rather continue,” Smith said.

The Packers enter their week 15 game on Saturday night against Carolina after having won three consecutive matches and five of their last six games. This hot spillover propelled Green Bay into the NFC number 1 entry into the week, a venue that would give Packers players their only NFC qualifying match in 2020. With this year’s qualifiers expanding to seven teams from each conference, only one team gets a goodbye Now instead of two.

In recent years, the teams ended up making farewells and later being nominated in the Divisional Tour to reach the Super Bowl. Every year since 2013, the Super Bowl teams say goodbye in the first round.

In the 2011 season, the Packers under Aaron Rodgers won the Super Bowl as a sixth seed and a wild card, but the simple math says having to win three games instead of four to lift the Lombardy Cup is the desired scenario. And with Rodgers continuing to lead at Green Bay, it seems unlikely that a week’s farewell week will have much of a negative impact.

Additionally, if the top-ranked Packers lost a goodbye to the first round, it would be because they stopped playing as they did, which would defeat half of Smith’s argument. All that will be left behind at this point are the checks, and they will get them either way.