While watching the pregame shows today, I saw a commentator or two cite yesterday's results to explain their decision on who they are picking today. I believe that it was Keyshawn Johnson that suggested that because the Jets and Cowboys played hard in Week 17, they won their respective playoff games, and that was why he is going with Green Bay over Arizona.

I have a hard time buying into such analysis. It pretty much ignores the personnel involved in the game, the schemes used by each team, etc ... It's reaching for an easy analytical crutch to lean upon, rather than giving real reasons why one team is better than another.

Is it be possible that resting your regulars in Week 17 can have a negative effect on your performance in Week 18? Certainly, but citing what happened with other teams that did that is correlative, not causative, at best.