There is an old football saying: "you cant have passengers for finals"
Or more to the point, you cant have a guy playing half a grand final, no matter how good he is.
If Nics current fitness base permitted him to play say, 75-80% of game time when he came back, it might be a different story.
But the reality is, even if we get him back in time, he will be playing 50% of game time, max.
And this is compounded where the guy has played very little football over the last 2 years, period
I am not saying we are a better team without him, but you simply cannot have a man miss that much football, and come back for a cutthroat final to be spending half the game on the bench.
When Alistair Clarkson brought back Cyril Rioli for the grand final having missed a ton of football prior, off the top of my head, i think he played 76% of total game time that day. And that's the difference.
If there is any doubt at all, i would much rather have Nic complete a full preseason and be cherry ripe for 2020
Because the cold, harsh reality is, even though we are a better team when he is fit and firing, we won the grand final without him
If he isnt fit, and doesnt make it, its not the end of the world.
I agree that you can't have passengers for finals, but NN 55-60% TOG is normal. if he is able to perform at a high level, for his usual amount of game time it doesn't make him a passenger.
But agree with your sentiment - if he is struggling to get to 50% TOG and physically can't have an impact then we leave him out. I reckon he would make that call himself though if it came to the crunch.