Since 2002, the NFL has been broken into eight separate four-team divisions. The NFL schedule has eight bye weeks, where four teams get a week off.
Am I the only one who thinks it’d be a good idea to have the weekly byes be for an entire division, rather than a (seemingly) random scattering of teams across the league?
FTR, I’d also like to see the byes be from weeks 5-13. Week 3 is insanely early to have a bye.
I don’t think we need bye weeks at all…or wild card teams, for that matter.
Let’s face it, bye weeks are not necessary for the fans, but the owners and tv networks like them because they add one more week of profitable programming. From a human being standpoint, the players, coaches are like everybody else in that it is nice to get a break from work. Mental health professionals will tell you that people need time to recharge their batteries from time to time, plus football players need time to recoup from their injuries.
If I had my druthers the bye week would be three bye weeks in the middle of the season. Ten teams would have a week off at week 8, twelve would have a week off for week 9 (the half way point of the season) and the other ten teams would get a bye during week 10. That way every team gets a bye in approximately the middle of the season.
I used to think they should lose one preseason game and give everyone two bye weeks during the year, but I like zamboniracer’s idea better.
Yeah I have often thought the same thing – it really stinks for one Team to have it week 3 and its Divsional rival in week 10 (in 2005 that could have implications for Baltimore and Cincinnati, and maybe Tennessee and Houston).
Failing this plan, I would never allow a bye before a Divsional game.
There would only be 10 or 11 games during those weeks. One year the NFL gave 2 bye weeks to each team. There were complaints that there were less compelling matchups because of the lack of games.
When the bye games were first introduced, they tended to be in the same division, and 2 teams coming off byes played the next week. I don’t know why they changed it to more random.
I agree with the OP. Giants play at Dallas this week. Giants are coming off a bye week. Oh well, Dallas plays at Philly after Dallas’ bye, and Dallas’ bye follows a Dallas home game against Arizona.
Check out the Chargers in the 2005 NFL schedule:
Week 5: Chargers play Pittsbugh with Pittsburgh coming off a bye following a Pittsburgh home game
Week 6: Chargers play at Oakland with the Oakland coming off a bye following an Oakland home game
Week 7: Chargers play at Phialdelphia with the Phialdelphia coming off a bye
Week 9: Chargers play Jets with the Jets coming off a bye
The Chargers are the only team playing 4 opponents coming off of byes. Two of those games are Chargers road games. Two of those games had the opponents playing at home immediately before the bye. Not really fair, IMHO.
I think this would work on an annual rotation schedule:
Week 6: Western Divisions Bye
Week 7: Eastern Divisions Bye
Week 8: Southern Divisions Bye
Week 9: Northern Divisions Bye
I completely agree. Early bye weeks are silly and they should be by division.
I like 1 division per week starting in week 6. This would give us weeks 6-13 having byes.
Some great ideas in this thread. A couple things to keep in mind:
When an entire division has the week off, then the fans of teams in that division, generally speaking, don’t care about any action that week. How many Giants fans watched intently that Eagles / Cowboys game last week? So having an entire division off at once would reduce viewership, IMO.
Besides, the bye week is the ideal time for players to be fans. I’ve heard about 5 different Giants comment about actually watching that game, and they are all unanimous in that they don’t really care about anybody on the schedule except their division opponents.
Also, the NFL schedule is 20 games long…4 preseason weeks followed by 16 regular season weeks. So technically, week 7 is the midpoint for non-playoff teams, where they would play 10 straight weeks both before and after the bye. Even if you make the playoffs, week 7 is really the ideal week.
I think the ideas presented in this thread could be tweaked to be made perfect, though. 8 teams per bye week leaves 12 games played, which is plenty. Keeping the week 7 midpoint in mind, the bye weeks should be weeks 6 through 9.
All “place” rankings based on last year’s regular season finish:
Week 6: Last place in every division gets a bye
Week 7: Second to last place in every division gets a bye
Week 8: Second best place in every division gets a bye
Week 9: Evey division winner gets a bye
Due to parity, it is likely that the week 9 bye wouldn’t sit all the best teams…how good are the Packers? But if that were a concern, maybe mix up half the teams in weeks 6 & 7 and weeks 8 & 9. (All AFC runner ups and all NFC division winners in week 8, and vice versa in week 9, for example.)
This would tend to place the better teams’ bye weeks in the midpoint of their season, while placing the bad teams’ bye weeks in the midpoint of their season. Even the worst case scenario is three weeks better than the currents setup if a Superbowl team gets a week 3 bye.
First of all, as has been said, the season is extended to 17 weeks. Hello. This is good for FANS, too. It gives us an extra week to watch.
Two bye weeks is a bad idea. They did it one year (like 2003 or something). There were weeks that year with NOTHING on TV. Cleveland-Cincinatti or Seattle-Buffalo would be the marquee match-up. Bad idea.
The bye week is fine as is. The “not play a divisional matchup after a bye” is a pretty good idea.
But 1 bye is fine. The randomness of the teams never bothered me.
Is anyone aware of exactly how they currently determine which teams get which bye weeks? I’m looking back a few years, and no patterns seem to be jumping out at me.