Is the NFL biased against certain teams when scheduling bye weeks? And does it matter?
The NFL season is potentially 28 weeks long for teams reaching the Super Bowl. (6 weeks training camp, 17 weeks regular season, 5 weeks of playoffs) By theory, it would seem most teams with Super Bowl aspirations would want their bye at about Week 8, thus breaking the season almost directly in half. And you would think that everything would even out � one year having a bye early, the next late, etc. That is in theory, but, in reality, it doesn�t work that way. Let�s take a look at the breakdown. Now, this breakdown is only from the last four years, since Houston entered the league. Before that time, with the 31-team NFL, there was at least one team with a bye each week. Now, from Week 3-10, 4 teams each week have their bye week. Thus, if the league balanced it out each year, the average for each team would be that they would have their bye in Week 6.5.
Bold numbers indicate a team that made the playoffs in that year. After I rank the teams, I will then look at the average off week of teams that made the playoffs as opposed to teams sitting at home for the playoffs to see if there is a difference.
NFC 2002 2003 2004 2005 Avg Conf Rank/NFL Rank
Detroit 5 6 4 3 4.50 T1/T2
Chicago 6 3 5 4 4.50 T1/T2
Minnesota 5 6 4 5 5.00 T3/T4
Philadelphia 6 3 5 6 5.00 T3/T4
Seattle 5 4 4 8 5.25 5/T7
Washington 4 8 7 3 5.50 T6/T9
NY Giants 7 4 6 5 5.50 T6/T9
Carolina 9 3 3 7 5.50 T6/T9
Arizona 6 7 6 6 6.25 9/T13
Dallas 10 3 4 9 6.50 10/T15
San Fran 4 10 7 6 6.75 11/T19
Atlanta 4 8 9 8 7.25 T12/T23
Tampa 10 4 8 7 7.25 T12/T23
St Louis 8 5 8 9 7.50 14/25
Green Bay 8 8 9 6 7.75 15/T26
N Orleans 9 10 8 10 9.25 16/31
AFC 2002 2003 2004 2005 Avg Conf Rank/NFL Rank
Baltimore 3 5 6 3 4.25 1/1
Houston 5 5 7 3 5.00 2/T4
Pittsburgh 3 7 7 4 5.25 3/T7
NY Jets 6 5 3 8 5.50 4/T9
Indy 4 7 6 8 6.25 5/T13
Miami 8 4 10 4 6.50 T6/T15
Jax 3 7 9 7 6.50 T6/T15
Oakland 3 8 10 5 6.50 T6/T15
N England 7 10 3 7 6.75 9/T19
Cincinnati 7 6 5 10 7.00 T10/T21
KC 9 9 5 5 7.00 T10/T21
Buffalo 10 9 3 9 7.75 T12/T26
Cleveland 10 9 8 4 7.75 T12/T26
San Diego 8 6 10 10 8.50 14/29
Tennessee 7 9 9 10 8.75 15/30
Denver 9 10 10 9 9.50 16/32
There are five teams that in 4 years have always had their bye in the first half of the bye season, Weeks 3-6. (Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Baltimore). The playoff percentage is 33.3%, 5 in 15 years. (Thanks to Philly�s three straight playoff appearances). There are three teams who have always had byes in the last half of the bye season, Weeks 7-10. (New Orleans, Tennessee, Denver) Their playoff appearance percentage is 44.4%, 4 in 9 years. The NFL average is 37.5%, 12 out of 32 teams in the playoffs each year.
Breaking it down by years and conferences:
2002 2003 2004 Total
NFC Non-playoff teams 6.70 6.60 5.80 6.37
NFC Playoff teams 6.50 4.33 6.50 5.78
AFC Non-playoff teams 6.90 6.60 7.20 6.90
AFC Playoff teams 5.50 8.33 6.50 6.78
As we can see, in the NFC, in 2003, there was a big gap, with the playoff teams getting their bye week an average of 2.27 weeks before the non-playoff teams. In 2002 and 2004, the difference was minimal. Overall, the difference has the playoff teams getting their bye week an average of 0.59 weeks before non-playoff teams. The AFC has two of the three years with big differences, in 2002, playoff teams had their bye an average of 1.40 weeks before non-playoff teams, and in a reversal, in 2003, playoff teams had their byes an average of 1.73 weeks after the non-playoff teams. The three-year total difference is only 0.12 weeks, a negligible difference.
In the NFL as a whole: 2002 2003 2004 Total
Playoff teams 6.00 6.33 6.50 6.28
Non-playoff teams 6.80 6.60 6.50 6.63
We see, overall, in 2002, there was a slight difference, with playoff teams bye an average of 0.80 weeks before non-playoff teams. The difference in 2003 was negligible, and in 2004 there was no difference! Overall, playoff teams had their bye week an average of 0.35 weeks before non-playoff teams. Not a big difference at all.
What does this mean? Well, I realize that three years is not a big statistical sampling compared to the number of years the NFL has had bye weeks. But, it seems to me that it, in the long run, when a team has a bye week doesn�t really have a big effect on making the playoffs.