The bench is safe. The field is where the stories are.

Benches really are safer. Nothing gets missed from there, no mistake is visible, nobody watches you lose, and the price is that nothing happens either, which is a bill that arrives slowly. Every story worth telling later came out of the part where something could have gone wrong.

Find the place you have been sitting out and get into it once this week. Ask for the minutes, the shift, the part. Being bad inside the real thing beats being theoretically fine on the sideline.