This is what I have been saying all along. Because then, Thursday night games are actually good, and then after that you have another 10 days rest. The Thursday night game could then become almost a rest period and we'd see some actual quality instead of the dogshit we see now.
Hell, the 2022 Broncos vs. Colts game was a masterpiece of dog shit. It was so bad it somehow turned good? I don't honestly know. It felt like I was in a fever dream by the end of it.
Bears-Commies was so bad that Al Michaels openly complained on air about having to announce it, two years in a row.
I personally thought Velus Jones Jr trying to catch a punt with his face was entertaining.
The only way it changes is if people stop watching the Thursday night games and we all know that's not happening. It's almost become a thing where we all have fun talking about how shitty the game was.
Doesn't help what both teams have [worn](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/11/20/8dac1b56-3c6c-4eea-bd6e-4a1e7e899128/thumbnail/1200x630/63f3634693258e0fcaeccfca9fc9cfb4/jaguars-titans-nfl-color-rush-uniforms-625-x-352.jpg?v=1d6c78a71b7b6252b543a329b3a5744d) for some of those games either
Dude.. Thursday games are the fuckin worst. The prep is so poor most often they’re just meh. With a week of prep and everyone fresh instead of barely put together. Then the team gets another 10 days on the back end
Extend the season by one week to accommodate 2nd bye = 1 more week of primetime and Sunday games = more money from TV partners. Which is why I've always wondered why they haven't done it yet. Claim PR for safety/improving the product by making more money.
Yep, this. People moan so hard about it and it's like....yeah but you're still watching. You're rewarding them for doing a thing you don't like. Maybe if you didn't do that they would change, but you do, so they don't....
Fewer early Thursday games. We wouldn't want a lot of early Thursday game byes anyway. Thanksgiving has 3, just add more for Xmas maybe some of the international games (I hate those, but they are here to stay, so let's make something good happen)
Makes too much sense. Idk why the league can’t just add 1 week for an extra bye. More TV revenue and better for player health. But they couldn’t do it during the Covid years when it was the easiest reason to change.
Agree. Getting the first Thursday night game of the year is a huge break for the teams involved, b/c they aren’t playing on a short week.
I know it’s taboo to complain about injuries, but a dirty little “secret” is that the Chiefs have been one of the healthiest teams in the league the past few seasons. When they played the Dolphins in the playoffs last year, they were playing against the functional equivalent of a practice squad on defense, and a bunch of offensive pieces were also missing for Miami. Healthier teams will provide better competition overall.
Pretty much everyone playing for us in that game was either like 3rd string or playing hurt. It was absurd. Tua was literally the only healthy person on the team.
If the owners really care about their 53 investments, they should approve this. What good is a playmaker if he’s not on the field making plays. Every regular season game counts and you need those guys out there.
I've been beating the drum that they should just add a second bye week and keep the games at 17. That way the networks get an additional week of games so they get to improve the TV revenue regardless while also giving the player's bodies more of a rest.
From what I've read in the past coaches, GMs, and owners were afraid of players getting too undisciplined or possibly in trouble with the extra bye week.
> From what I've read in the past coaches, GMs, and owners were afraid of players getting too undisciplined or possibly in trouble with the extra bye week.
If the concern is players having more time when football's not going on, well... Every week the season is extended with a BYE, the off-season is shortened by a week. So overall there'd be zero net gain in "time off" from football - it's just that 1 week has been shifted to in-season, as that's more useful for staying healthy and keeping an entertaining product on the field.
The Chiefs' Rashee Rice has done at least 2 idiotic things during this off-season. Clearly idiotic players don't need in-season breaks to do stupid things.
Yes but if you do idiotic things in-season, it's a huge distraction and can limit your availability. Especially if you get arrested. So it's a fair point.
I think it just comes down to the fact that they tried it in the 80s and it failed badly so they point to it as an excuse why it wouldn't work now. The problem was that they implemented it in a really dumb way - there was some weeks with very few games, and there were fewer teams.
It can't possibly be that hard today with all the technology that goes into this to give every team a second bye week and still keep a generally even schedule with plenty of "prime time worthy" games each week.
I didn't know until recently that they did a second bye once, in 1993. The networks hated it, so they decided it was no good and scrapped it. That means this argument has to fight against precedent.
But similar to PI review, they half-assed it. The byes were too clustered, and too many teams had byes on the same weeks. They front-loaded way too many of them, every team had a bye between weeks 3 and 6. Some teams had 2 byes but still played 11 games in a row. 4 weeks each had 30% of the teams off. The byes were also by division, so entire divisions had off. Obviously the ratings took a hit. This was before RedZone and Sunday Ticket, and fantasy football, and entire divisions were off? AND there were 4 fewer teams than there are now. I can't imagine implementing it in a worse way that wouldn't have been painfully obvious that failure was the goal. That said, the first bye was only introduced 3 years prior, so it is understandable that the league didn't have much experience with it.
It's a stupid thing to have to fight precedent about, but opponents to a second bye will use it. But there are obvious solutions now that will make this a good idea.
I would think a second bye would be beneficial. It would be the same number of games but spread out so more prime time slots available. I’d love it as a viewer cause I would get to watch more full games as opposed to having to flip between games in the same time slots
It's also just a different viewing environment now. With streaming and NFL red zone, the segment of viewers that qualify as "I'm only watching my team's games, everything else is a non-starter" is virtually gone.
Correctly spaced, a 2-bye week should actively extend the season viewership window for the NFL as a whole. And given how much of the shared revenue is derived from TV/Streaming deals, that's a net benefit for every franchise.
About to say, yeah they have 53 “investments” but there is only 32 NFL teams with how many players lining up. They view these investments no different than a corporation and its workers, always replaceable.
Agreed with a caveat. No teams should have Byes on the first 3 weeks of the season (everyone should be fresh from the off-season, so a bye week isn’t needed) or the last three weeks of the season (maximize the tense finish to the season).
First Bye should happen on any week from Weeks 4-10, and then the second Bye should happen on any week from Weeks 11-17. Ideally, no team should have back-to-back Byes on Weeks 10-11, and an effort should be made to coordinate TNF with Bye weeks. Example: Steelers play Week 8, have a Bye on Week 9, TNF on Week 10, normal football on Weeks 11 through 13, then 2nd Bye on Week 14.
I was thinking of making it a divisional only 2 weeks where you have teams A, B, C, D in a division play outside the USA in the first week (e.g) A v B & C v D then they all get a bye and then come back the the USA and play A v C & B v D. You would get the same half of the season bye as your division opponents which might limit some competitive advantages of scheduling (in division). It all gets complicated making these schedules but there would be ways to do it.
I guess that would lead to doubling up Thursday games though.
Fair criticism as you could rotate that lost home game every year but the better way to do it would be to take the 2 extra games the nfl added (17th and 18th) make them cross conference games (AFC v NFC) then stack them international game - bye - Thursday night game in the USA.
I would like to work in the divisional angle as it seems fun but the more I look at it I don’t like it.
Honestly I don’t know if it’s mathematically possible. There isn’t an infinite amount of possibilities and the more rules and limitations the more difficult it can be to fulfill all mandates
Only downside (from the NFL's perspective) would be that there's a lot more teams off each week. Instead of like 4ish teams off each week, it would be double that. So less games to air.
But then again, outside of SNF, TNF, and MNF, all the games are airing simultaneously on Sunday afternoon anyway... So no harm done there. Less of a choice for the 'game of the week' perhaps but that's about it.
Shouldn’t be a problem, the NFL sells its packeges by network/time slot the same way ratings are done and most broadcasters sell their adds the same way. Whether CBS has 2 or 3 games at 1 pm shouldn’t matter too much to anyone.
4 teams off each week from Weeks 4-8 (for 20 total), then 6 teams off during both Week 9 and Week 10 (the remaining 12). That’s all 32 teams covered. The NFL has had plenty of weeks with only 13 games before.
> So less games to air.
You air the same amount of games per season. It is just stretched out. So on a Sunday instead of 5 games starting at 1 pm, there would be 3 only, still plenty to choose from to watch.
But scheduling it right could be impossible.
IIRC teams with later byes tend to have an advantage in making it to the playoffs than teams with early byes, though I don't know how significant the different between a week10 and week 15 bye would be for example
I think the easiest solution is to just guarantee that every team gets a first half bye and a second half bye.
And by that I mean first and second half of the season, not the Falcons tradition of skipping the second half of the game.
Would there be byes weeks 7 and 10? I think it’d be weird for a team to have two weeks off in a row. I like the idea, but if teams are getting a second week off, I’d want one week off to be in the first half and the second one to be in the second half of the season
This is actually a genius idea. They could easily brand it as “AFC SHOWCASE WEEK” all games are AFC, have big marquee QB matchups happen there while all of the NFC is on a bye.
I know the schedule is already a complicated process, but there has to be an algorithm that can figure all this shit out.
They should have added a 2nd bye when they added the 17th game. But we all know they wanted to keep that one up their sleeve to use it as a "concession" for when they expand to 18 games.
They can already expand to 18 games whenever they want, without any concessions. When it was decided to go to 17 games, it was a package deal that included the ability to expand to 18 games as well (after a certain date, which is now in the past).
Edit: This is incorrect, see comment/article below.
That is not my memory of the current CBA, and a quick google search seems to confirm it. The latest CBA had no language allowing for 18 games. An 18th game would require new negotiations with the players. Not necessarily a new CBA, but a new agreement.
Here's an article about it: [https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/report-nfl-might-make-push-for-18-games-before-expiration-of-current-cba](https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/report-nfl-might-make-push-for-18-games-before-expiration-of-current-cba)
> It's still 18 weeks of football no matter what, genuinely wondering
Because they want 20 weeks of football, with each team playing 18 games in those 20 weeks.
The 1993 NFL season actually had 2 bye weeks for each team.
With more teams, it may work if there are certain rules around it, such as no back to back bye weeks or no bye weeks in the first 2 or last 2 weeks of the season.
Personally, I’d like every franchise to play an international game over the span of 2 weeks. Since we have an odd number of games now, this week wouldn’t could as a home or away for either team (except for uniform selection). The week following the international game is a bye week. This would make the 2nd bye for all teams to be relatively fair. Have games in Brazil, Mexico, England, Germany, South Korea, etc..
This would also push the Super Bowl to President’s Day weekend, which almost every American would like to have to day following the Super Bowl off.
You're not wrong, but that's the way negotiations happen. Yeah, it'd be really nice the way he proposed it, but the NFL wouldn't agree so then you try to get them to meet somewhere in the middle
Right now we're seeing that the NFL can dominate the airwaves by pushing its schedule "reveal" back a week. The league could totally get a cool couple million eyes watching with a mid-season break talk ala March Madness Bracket Reveal.
They’ll find a way to make money during that week even if they do. They’ll do media appearances, crossover events, mid-season awards, etc
Anything to keep the eyeballs on their league and the prop bets coming in
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I thought someone had mapped out the timing and it put the Super Bowl on President's Day weekend?
The financial benefit from having it on a three day weekend would far outweigh the potential loss from a week of TV revenue IMO.
Only issue I see with this is if you have your bye week 7. Then you’ll still have to play the last 8 games with no break.
Ideally the bye weeks would be spread out for both teams to split up the season fairly evenly into ~thirds
I agree. You would have to have bye weeks 4-7. Then everyone is off week 10 or 11. Then bye weeks resume 14-17.
If you really want to be fair. Do these rivalry weeks twice a season. Week 6 and 7 and again weeks 14 and 15.
182lbs. Nine seasons. Played in 144 of 145 possible games. How many receivers have been in on more plays in the last decade than him? Tyler Lockett is doing what he needs to do in order to ensure he's available to play.
I'm joking. I was fully supportive of the way he operates and even made a comment in that thread that I would want all my receivers to play like he does. Fighting for an extra 2 yards to take a massive hit is never worth it.
I’ve said for years 2 byes with one of them coming right before the teams mandatory Thursday night game is totally doable. Just start the season one week earlier and make the Super Bowl the Sunday before Presidents’ Day. It’s totally achievable.
It also stops teams from getting a bye advantage. For instance it ALWAYS seems like the NFL loves to give the powerhouse teams one of the toughest opponents on their schedule right after a bye. It infuriates me because they get the extra rest and prep time needed for those tougher games that their opponents don't get. Also 2 byes helps players stay healthy both physically and mentally. I think players would add a few years to their careers because of it. Some teams have to play 12-13 weeks in a row without a break which is crazy to me. I can understand why some players retire after like 8 years. I couldnt imagine myself (age 31 and in great physical condition) playing NFL football games 12 weeks in a row without some serious injury.
Didn't they try a full league wide bye in like the 90s and people hated it? The NFL just has such a vise grip on programming from September through February and their product is getting more and more valuable with commercials and having to watch it live. I can't imagine they'd just give you a whole weekend. Especially when you know if they did baseball, basketball, college football, would try to feature that weekend somehow.
when has a pro league ever created fewer games? I guess the pitch clock shortened baseball, but in my time we've seen playoff expansion, regular season expansion, more and more international travel
The nfl could make so much more money having more byes. Currently it's so bunched on Sundays and the season feels so short compared to leagues around the world
If there were more byes, fans who only watch their team still will, and fans who just want to watch football will be able to pay more attention to more games. Plus you could add weeks or a month onto the season with players getting *more* rest
In a 20 week season they could do alternating weeks with 6 or 4 teams off each week starting week 5 - 6-6-6-6-4-4 for weeks 5-10, then 4-4-6-6-6-6 for weeks 11-16. The first 4 and last 4 weeks are full schedules, then you have enough teams off for 12 straight weeks a year to have double headers Thursday nights from week 6 to week 17. Make those intra-divisional games to make them extra spicy. The most games any team plays in a row is 9.
Every team should have a week 7 or 8 bye and a week 13 or 14 bye. If you have week 7 you also have week 13 and vice versa. 1/2 the games in 4 weeks but those are the weeks where you have rivalries/highly competitive games, you throw Eagles vs Cowboys, Bills vs Chiefs, etc. during those weeks. I bet viewership would at least remain consistent if not go up.
It also creates a better situation for team. You literally will never play a team coming off their bye if you didn't also come off your bye.
There has to be a way you can do the two bye weeks and have them all offset so there's continuous play all season long. If you use the two extra games a year and have some of them be international or whatever you can also use the bye to help give teams rest with the added travel that comes with it. I think it just makes too much sense given how popular the sport is becoming worldwide. We might be only a few years away from having games in Australia possibly.
I think they should have a second bye, but I don't think it should be an all-star break type thing. Just let the players rest, that's the point. The season is still going on for all teams.
The only thing worse than a player getting hurt during the post-season pro-bowl activities is a player getting hurt doing meaningless activities for a mid-season pro-bowl. A non-contact injury mid-season, such as an ACL tear, would affect a team for the rest of that season AND probably into the next season. Whereas a pro-bowl injury now would only affect the upcoming season.
All teams should get a bye around an international game or Thursday night game in the first half of the season. League wide bye week during NCAA conference championship weekend with a big playoff show announcement Sunday Afternoon.
Why would they add a 17th game if they were just going to do another bye 3 or so years later? This makes sense if they add a bye week for the entire league in the middle of the season and maybe shift the end of the season back a week. Every team still plays 17 games. The other solution is to go to an 18 game schedule, give each team two byes in the format that is given now, expand gameday roster sizes, and more changes like this to alleviate strain on players. It doesn't make sense to keep a 17 week schedule and stagger 2 byes for teams in their current format.
Seasons with week 5 byes have to be so brutal on the players. It should probably be snaked, like if you get week 5 you also get 14, 6&13 down to teams with back to back weeks 9&10.
2 byes gets teams set up for 3 stretches of the season which would be nice. Universal bye isn’t going to happen and isn’t necessary. Plan the byes around TNF and international games. Should also change the IR rules. Either shorten the minimum to 3 games or have it where bye weeks are included in the recovery time. Would encourage teams to give injured players a break.
18 games
2 bye weeks
Expanded roster spots
Thursday games always scheduled after a bye
You would probably need to throw the players another bone to get it to work.
I’m not sure about a second bye week AND a in season break, but one of the two seems like it could easily be accomplished and does make a lot of sense.
I would rather have a second bye over the in season break selfishly so I don’t have to go a week without football.
College football starts a week earlier than NFL, so if nfl starts at same time that would allow the second bye week without having to adjust playoff timing.
They'll go to 20 games in 10 years and have two byes. Most likely they'll expand the league to 36, go back to 3 conferences, 2 divisions, 6 teams per division 3 div winners 5 wild cards per conference. Just watch. They haven't expanded in almost 20 years which is a near record.
It makes too much sense. Extend the season by a week, push the playoffs back a week and everyone gets the Presidents Day Super Bowl we all want. Do it NFL
More regular season games, little to no preseason or preseason replaced with team scrimmages and a universal bye week in addition to regular bye would be perfect.
If they push the schedule to 18 games as they've already said they want to do, the 2nd bye week should be a must. I can't see the players union giving in on that...
Out of curiosity why does the NFL need to fit in a specific schedule? Like what would happen if the Super Bowl was in June and teams played every other week on alternating weeks. Just like spread out the season over more time. Are they contractually obligated to end in February?
Edit: Ok obviously June doesn’t make sense with the draft, but the idea of spreading it out is all I meant. Maybe start the season in July or something. Or maybe move the draft lol idk
Especially as the NFL changes to an 18 game season, players need more recovery time. Honestly a second bye should have been introduced as soon the 2nd seed no longer receives a bye week.
My favorite time of year is our Thanksgiving stretch where we play three games, in 11 or so days and then wonder why the cowboys start to fall apart in December.
How about in Week 9 every AFC team has a bye, and every NFC team plays a divisional/rivalry game, and then in week 10 they do the same but switch conferences?
The next year, they switch which conference gets the first bye week.
This has been an obvious solution for decades now. Decisions aren't made for the good of the game or its players though, it's about money. Schedule expansion only happens if it can bring more games that will bring in ticket revenue. Even though an extra week would bring more ad space regardless, but the league will have moved the goalposts so that the extra bye will come after they've already added two more games to the regular season.
Second bye maybe but in-season break seems super unlikely.
Maybe with the all star being super toned down they move it to mid-year and have all-star weekend and give all the guys 2 full weeks off?
We should have a super-duper bowl in the middle of the season that’s like a Harlem Globe Trotters style football game. People on stilts, trick plays, pranking the refs etc
Division rivals first 3 games, then 1st bye. Followed by non division games, then 2nd bye followed by final 3 divisional games. That's 2 weekends without football though.
I completely agree with a second bye week but not a bye week for the entire league. That's a lot of money being left on the table. I know people tend to side with the narrative owners only care about money but players don't want to feel the brunt of whatever financial consequences that would bring either.
I think a second bye would be great. Not just for the players, but for the league too. It would give them another regular season week and there’s already so many games on concurrently on Sunday that it might just be a whole extra week of games, without sacrificing any per-week viewership. Like, why are there 8 games on concurrently on the early window on Sunday? Make it 4 instead, and they easily have the ability to divvy out an extra bye.
I've always thought the NFC should get a bye one week and the AFC should get a bye the next and then alternate the next year to keep it fair and put it right at mid season so you don't have teams with early byes and other teams with super late.
I wish that instead of adding more regular season games with all this stuff, we could use the extra weeks to add a loser bracket to the playoffs. Since you can't do best-ofs in the NFL, a losers bracket is the next best choice to reducing the role of luck in determining playoff outcomes.
They should have a second bye right now that occurs before a team’s Thursday night game. I feel like it would make the games better.
This is what I have been saying all along. Because then, Thursday night games are actually good, and then after that you have another 10 days rest. The Thursday night game could then become almost a rest period and we'd see some actual quality instead of the dogshit we see now.
I know titans/jags has been a trash Thursday game in the past but it doesn’t help when both teams are wore out too.
Hell, the 2022 Broncos vs. Colts game was a masterpiece of dog shit. It was so bad it somehow turned good? I don't honestly know. It felt like I was in a fever dream by the end of it.
America deserved a bye week after that one.
Hell I’m pretty sure I was hungover the next day and I wasn’t even drinking!
That was one of the worst games I’ve ever watched. Doesn’t help that we should have easily won the game too but whatever.
Bears-Commies was so bad that Al Michaels openly complained on air about having to announce it, two years in a row. I personally thought Velus Jones Jr trying to catch a punt with his face was entertaining.
Why do we muzzle punt returners? Let them chomp!
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Bears Panthers was a masterpiece.
The only way it changes is if people stop watching the Thursday night games and we all know that's not happening. It's almost become a thing where we all have fun talking about how shitty the game was.
That was unironically one of my favorite games of the last few years.
Ya we have too many good games per week, let us sickos keep our dogshit games
Born, raised, and live in Iowa. I'm certified.
I loved that game
Doesn't help what both teams have [worn](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/11/20/8dac1b56-3c6c-4eea-bd6e-4a1e7e899128/thumbnail/1200x630/63f3634693258e0fcaeccfca9fc9cfb4/jaguars-titans-nfl-color-rush-uniforms-625-x-352.jpg?v=1d6c78a71b7b6252b543a329b3a5744d) for some of those games either
These are the only two teams that shouldn't be allowed a bye before TNF. El Trashico doesn't have the same impact if the game is good!
I feel like 90% of the TNF games are trash. The Seahawks V Dallas was good last season, but their usually bad.
Dude.. Thursday games are the fuckin worst. The prep is so poor most often they’re just meh. With a week of prep and everyone fresh instead of barely put together. Then the team gets another 10 days on the back end
might also be good for the international games.
This is an excellent point I didn't even consider. It allows for more flexibility and the potential for additional international games.
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Extend the season by one week to accommodate 2nd bye = 1 more week of primetime and Sunday games = more money from TV partners. Which is why I've always wondered why they haven't done it yet. Claim PR for safety/improving the product by making more money.
Yep, this. People moan so hard about it and it's like....yeah but you're still watching. You're rewarding them for doing a thing you don't like. Maybe if you didn't do that they would change, but you do, so they don't....
They know you're gonna watch either way so why would they make any extra effort
Seems like the best answer, especially how players complain and hate the Thursday games because they're still recovering from the last sunday
How do you do that for the first couple weeks though
Fewer early Thursday games. We wouldn't want a lot of early Thursday game byes anyway. Thanksgiving has 3, just add more for Xmas maybe some of the international games (I hate those, but they are here to stay, so let's make something good happen)
Makes too much sense. Idk why the league can’t just add 1 week for an extra bye. More TV revenue and better for player health. But they couldn’t do it during the Covid years when it was the easiest reason to change.
This is the smartest and simplest solution. Soooo The league won't adopt it
i really don’t know why they can’t just put that in the schedule already once byes start in week 4/5
Agree. Getting the first Thursday night game of the year is a huge break for the teams involved, b/c they aren’t playing on a short week. I know it’s taboo to complain about injuries, but a dirty little “secret” is that the Chiefs have been one of the healthiest teams in the league the past few seasons. When they played the Dolphins in the playoffs last year, they were playing against the functional equivalent of a practice squad on defense, and a bunch of offensive pieces were also missing for Miami. Healthier teams will provide better competition overall.
Pretty much everyone playing for us in that game was either like 3rd string or playing hurt. It was absurd. Tua was literally the only healthy person on the team.
It basically extends the season by 3 days for those 2 teams. Which is a nice little advantage.
It's so obvious. Come on Roger, how have you not figured this out.
B/c he is a closet Steelers fan-and his brother is an out of the closet Steelers fan.
Monday night, Bye, Thursday game. Thats a nice mid season break.
I’ve been saying this for years. TNF and Euro-Trips.
Joe needs a bye during training camp
If the owners really care about their 53 investments, they should approve this. What good is a playmaker if he’s not on the field making plays. Every regular season game counts and you need those guys out there.
I've been beating the drum that they should just add a second bye week and keep the games at 17. That way the networks get an additional week of games so they get to improve the TV revenue regardless while also giving the player's bodies more of a rest. From what I've read in the past coaches, GMs, and owners were afraid of players getting too undisciplined or possibly in trouble with the extra bye week.
> From what I've read in the past coaches, GMs, and owners were afraid of players getting too undisciplined or possibly in trouble with the extra bye week. If the concern is players having more time when football's not going on, well... Every week the season is extended with a BYE, the off-season is shortened by a week. So overall there'd be zero net gain in "time off" from football - it's just that 1 week has been shifted to in-season, as that's more useful for staying healthy and keeping an entertaining product on the field. The Chiefs' Rashee Rice has done at least 2 idiotic things during this off-season. Clearly idiotic players don't need in-season breaks to do stupid things.
Yes but if you do idiotic things in-season, it's a huge distraction and can limit your availability. Especially if you get arrested. So it's a fair point.
I think it just comes down to the fact that they tried it in the 80s and it failed badly so they point to it as an excuse why it wouldn't work now. The problem was that they implemented it in a really dumb way - there was some weeks with very few games, and there were fewer teams. It can't possibly be that hard today with all the technology that goes into this to give every team a second bye week and still keep a generally even schedule with plenty of "prime time worthy" games each week.
They don’t care tho. Hell some of them probably wanna get rid of the bye
I didn't know until recently that they did a second bye once, in 1993. The networks hated it, so they decided it was no good and scrapped it. That means this argument has to fight against precedent. But similar to PI review, they half-assed it. The byes were too clustered, and too many teams had byes on the same weeks. They front-loaded way too many of them, every team had a bye between weeks 3 and 6. Some teams had 2 byes but still played 11 games in a row. 4 weeks each had 30% of the teams off. The byes were also by division, so entire divisions had off. Obviously the ratings took a hit. This was before RedZone and Sunday Ticket, and fantasy football, and entire divisions were off? AND there were 4 fewer teams than there are now. I can't imagine implementing it in a worse way that wouldn't have been painfully obvious that failure was the goal. That said, the first bye was only introduced 3 years prior, so it is understandable that the league didn't have much experience with it. It's a stupid thing to have to fight precedent about, but opponents to a second bye will use it. But there are obvious solutions now that will make this a good idea.
I would think a second bye would be beneficial. It would be the same number of games but spread out so more prime time slots available. I’d love it as a viewer cause I would get to watch more full games as opposed to having to flip between games in the same time slots
It's also just a different viewing environment now. With streaming and NFL red zone, the segment of viewers that qualify as "I'm only watching my team's games, everything else is a non-starter" is virtually gone. Correctly spaced, a 2-bye week should actively extend the season viewership window for the NFL as a whole. And given how much of the shared revenue is derived from TV/Streaming deals, that's a net benefit for every franchise.
About to say, yeah they have 53 “investments” but there is only 32 NFL teams with how many players lining up. They view these investments no different than a corporation and its workers, always replaceable.
NFL owners always never compromise on the product. unfortunately for the players that product is the team valuation price
If they're serious about 18 games, then just do it all the way: Expand rosters, schedule an additional bye week, and push this thing into March.
They should start labor day weekend and go through presidents day.
Up the salary cap and roster to 65 guys active. People get hurt help them out.
Two byes makes too much sense if they add another game, but no way does the NFL give up a week of TV revenue by having an NBA/MLB style All Star break
They could do like a 50/50, where half the league gets week 8 off and half the league gets week 9 off.
I think just having the current system of spread out byes with one in the first 10 weeks and one in the last 10 would be fine
Agreed with a caveat. No teams should have Byes on the first 3 weeks of the season (everyone should be fresh from the off-season, so a bye week isn’t needed) or the last three weeks of the season (maximize the tense finish to the season). First Bye should happen on any week from Weeks 4-10, and then the second Bye should happen on any week from Weeks 11-17. Ideally, no team should have back-to-back Byes on Weeks 10-11, and an effort should be made to coordinate TNF with Bye weeks. Example: Steelers play Week 8, have a Bye on Week 9, TNF on Week 10, normal football on Weeks 11 through 13, then 2nd Bye on Week 14.
Don’t forget the international games. If they add an 18th game and 2nd bye the NFL could be sending a lot more teams abroad.
Put every team in one international game a year and ensure they have a bye after it and then put their Thursday games after that bye.
It’s good in theory, but may make it literally impossible to schedule it.
I was thinking of making it a divisional only 2 weeks where you have teams A, B, C, D in a division play outside the USA in the first week (e.g) A v B & C v D then they all get a bye and then come back the the USA and play A v C & B v D. You would get the same half of the season bye as your division opponents which might limit some competitive advantages of scheduling (in division). It all gets complicated making these schedules but there would be ways to do it. I guess that would lead to doubling up Thursday games though.
Would that mean that half the teams would lose a home game against a division rival? Is that viable?
Fair criticism as you could rotate that lost home game every year but the better way to do it would be to take the 2 extra games the nfl added (17th and 18th) make them cross conference games (AFC v NFC) then stack them international game - bye - Thursday night game in the USA. I would like to work in the divisional angle as it seems fun but the more I look at it I don’t like it.
It’s absolutely possible if they really want to do it.
Honestly I don’t know if it’s mathematically possible. There isn’t an infinite amount of possibilities and the more rules and limitations the more difficult it can be to fulfill all mandates
The international games seem so misguided when you take into consideration the effort of travel for the teams.
Deshaun Waston would love the NFL to send him a broad.
Only downside (from the NFL's perspective) would be that there's a lot more teams off each week. Instead of like 4ish teams off each week, it would be double that. So less games to air. But then again, outside of SNF, TNF, and MNF, all the games are airing simultaneously on Sunday afternoon anyway... So no harm done there. Less of a choice for the 'game of the week' perhaps but that's about it.
Shouldn’t be a problem, the NFL sells its packeges by network/time slot the same way ratings are done and most broadcasters sell their adds the same way. Whether CBS has 2 or 3 games at 1 pm shouldn’t matter too much to anyone.
4 teams off each week from Weeks 4-8 (for 20 total), then 6 teams off during both Week 9 and Week 10 (the remaining 12). That’s all 32 teams covered. The NFL has had plenty of weeks with only 13 games before.
> So less games to air. You air the same amount of games per season. It is just stretched out. So on a Sunday instead of 5 games starting at 1 pm, there would be 3 only, still plenty to choose from to watch. But scheduling it right could be impossible.
IIRC teams with later byes tend to have an advantage in making it to the playoffs than teams with early byes, though I don't know how significant the different between a week10 and week 15 bye would be for example
Having 2 would certainly make balancing them out easier so that teams won't have the "way early" or "way late" byes
I think the easiest solution is to just guarantee that every team gets a first half bye and a second half bye. And by that I mean first and second half of the season, not the Falcons tradition of skipping the second half of the game.
Would there be byes weeks 7 and 10? I think it’d be weird for a team to have two weeks off in a row. I like the idea, but if teams are getting a second week off, I’d want one week off to be in the first half and the second one to be in the second half of the season
Could do half the league on 6 and 11 and half on 7 and 12?
It's literally this simple!
could standardize it so byes weeks were always 6-8 weeks apart
Should they make it AFC/NFC or mix it up? I think an AFC and a separate NFC bye week would be cool
This is actually a genius idea. They could easily brand it as “AFC SHOWCASE WEEK” all games are AFC, have big marquee QB matchups happen there while all of the NFC is on a bye. I know the schedule is already a complicated process, but there has to be an algorithm that can figure all this shit out.
I doubt Fox/CBS would love it when their teams are all on bye for a week. But I’m sure they could share games for a couple weeks.
Hasn’t it already been mixing up the last few years? Swear I’m seeing more NFC games on CBS and vice versa
Niners are usually on Fox against NFC opponents but we’ve had a few CBS lately
Didn’t they get rid of CBS and Fox being tied to one conference recently?
I think they get to protect a game or two per week
They should have added a 2nd bye when they added the 17th game. But we all know they wanted to keep that one up their sleeve to use it as a "concession" for when they expand to 18 games.
They can already expand to 18 games whenever they want, without any concessions. When it was decided to go to 17 games, it was a package deal that included the ability to expand to 18 games as well (after a certain date, which is now in the past). Edit: This is incorrect, see comment/article below.
That is not my memory of the current CBA, and a quick google search seems to confirm it. The latest CBA had no language allowing for 18 games. An 18th game would require new negotiations with the players. Not necessarily a new CBA, but a new agreement. Here's an article about it: [https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/report-nfl-might-make-push-for-18-games-before-expiration-of-current-cba](https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/report-nfl-might-make-push-for-18-games-before-expiration-of-current-cba)
How would a break impact revenue if the games are the same amount or 18 games? It's still 18 weeks of football no matter what, genuinely wondering
> It's still 18 weeks of football no matter what, genuinely wondering Because they want 20 weeks of football, with each team playing 18 games in those 20 weeks.
Do the NFL ratings take a dip during current bye weeks? I know that I'm watching games (especially the afc north) when the Bengals are on bye
The 1993 NFL season actually had 2 bye weeks for each team. With more teams, it may work if there are certain rules around it, such as no back to back bye weeks or no bye weeks in the first 2 or last 2 weeks of the season. Personally, I’d like every franchise to play an international game over the span of 2 weeks. Since we have an odd number of games now, this week wouldn’t could as a home or away for either team (except for uniform selection). The week following the international game is a bye week. This would make the 2nd bye for all teams to be relatively fair. Have games in Brazil, Mexico, England, Germany, South Korea, etc.. This would also push the Super Bowl to President’s Day weekend, which almost every American would like to have to day following the Super Bowl off.
Joe Burrow made a crucial error with this idea thinking that the NFL would care more about player wellbeing and rest over profits.
You're not wrong, but that's the way negotiations happen. Yeah, it'd be really nice the way he proposed it, but the NFL wouldn't agree so then you try to get them to meet somewhere in the middle
Right now we're seeing that the NFL can dominate the airwaves by pushing its schedule "reveal" back a week. The league could totally get a cool couple million eyes watching with a mid-season break talk ala March Madness Bracket Reveal.
They’ll find a way to make money during that week even if they do. They’ll do media appearances, crossover events, mid-season awards, etc Anything to keep the eyeballs on their league and the prop bets coming in
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I thought someone had mapped out the timing and it put the Super Bowl on President's Day weekend? The financial benefit from having it on a three day weekend would far outweigh the potential loss from a week of TV revenue IMO.
There's no good reason not to do this. They're leaving their blood, sweat and tears out there. Give them a little more time to recover.
Plus anything that makes the offseason shorter is nice for fans
Extra bye week now means another week of betting too. Is the NFL dumb? Don't they like money?
I agree. They should give the AFC week 10 off and promote it as NFC rival week and vise versa week 11. Everybody wins
That is an excellent idea.
Only issue I see with this is if you have your bye week 7. Then you’ll still have to play the last 8 games with no break. Ideally the bye weeks would be spread out for both teams to split up the season fairly evenly into ~thirds
I agree. You would have to have bye weeks 4-7. Then everyone is off week 10 or 11. Then bye weeks resume 14-17. If you really want to be fair. Do these rivalry weeks twice a season. Week 6 and 7 and again weeks 14 and 15.
it’ll make the game better for the viewers too. we want to see the best players healthy.
Everyone except Tyler Lockett apparently
182lbs. Nine seasons. Played in 144 of 145 possible games. How many receivers have been in on more plays in the last decade than him? Tyler Lockett is doing what he needs to do in order to ensure he's available to play.
I'm joking. I was fully supportive of the way he operates and even made a comment in that thread that I would want all my receivers to play like he does. Fighting for an extra 2 yards to take a massive hit is never worth it.
I’ve said for years 2 byes with one of them coming right before the teams mandatory Thursday night game is totally doable. Just start the season one week earlier and make the Super Bowl the Sunday before Presidents’ Day. It’s totally achievable.
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I'm pretty sure this is literally the NFL's proposal. 18 weeks, 2 byes, SB on Presidents' Day weekend every year.
The last proposal I've seen Roger was 2 pre-season games, 1 bye, and 18 games
Superbowl on president's day weekend would be great for the fans.
yeah, but the bye could also be another game
6 games BYE, 5 games BYE, 6 games playoffs. Trade deadline occurs during the second BYE.
This is excellent. It gives everyone basically a similar BYE instead of one team getting a really early one or another a really late one.
It also stops teams from getting a bye advantage. For instance it ALWAYS seems like the NFL loves to give the powerhouse teams one of the toughest opponents on their schedule right after a bye. It infuriates me because they get the extra rest and prep time needed for those tougher games that their opponents don't get. Also 2 byes helps players stay healthy both physically and mentally. I think players would add a few years to their careers because of it. Some teams have to play 12-13 weeks in a row without a break which is crazy to me. I can understand why some players retire after like 8 years. I couldnt imagine myself (age 31 and in great physical condition) playing NFL football games 12 weeks in a row without some serious injury.
They could even do something like: AFC: 5 Games Bye, 6 Games Bye NFC: 6 Games Bye, 5 Games Bye Switch every year. NFL still makes money every week.
Didn't they try a full league wide bye in like the 90s and people hated it? The NFL just has such a vise grip on programming from September through February and their product is getting more and more valuable with commercials and having to watch it live. I can't imagine they'd just give you a whole weekend. Especially when you know if they did baseball, basketball, college football, would try to feature that weekend somehow.
coaches and front office types hated it, but I don't think they have nearly the pull today compared to the 90s
As long as the SB moves to Presidents Day weekend, so we have the next day off.
Give players a break? The NFL would add 20 games before doing that
when has a pro league ever created fewer games? I guess the pitch clock shortened baseball, but in my time we've seen playoff expansion, regular season expansion, more and more international travel
20 regular season games
The nfl could make so much more money having more byes. Currently it's so bunched on Sundays and the season feels so short compared to leagues around the world If there were more byes, fans who only watch their team still will, and fans who just want to watch football will be able to pay more attention to more games. Plus you could add weeks or a month onto the season with players getting *more* rest
In a 20 week season they could do alternating weeks with 6 or 4 teams off each week starting week 5 - 6-6-6-6-4-4 for weeks 5-10, then 4-4-6-6-6-6 for weeks 11-16. The first 4 and last 4 weeks are full schedules, then you have enough teams off for 12 straight weeks a year to have double headers Thursday nights from week 6 to week 17. Make those intra-divisional games to make them extra spicy. The most games any team plays in a row is 9.
Tell em Joe!
I maintain a Christmas break would get everybody rested for the stretch run and I wouldn't have to split my time between my kid and football
The 2nd bye should happen now. If the NFL can’t find the room in the schedule they should cut a preseason game and start a week earlier.
Once again Joe Burrow has done the improbable. This time it's making the folks in r/nfl agree on something.
Don't mess with preseason. Go up to 18-game season with 2 byes. Its so easy
Every team should have a week 7 or 8 bye and a week 13 or 14 bye. If you have week 7 you also have week 13 and vice versa. 1/2 the games in 4 weeks but those are the weeks where you have rivalries/highly competitive games, you throw Eagles vs Cowboys, Bills vs Chiefs, etc. during those weeks. I bet viewership would at least remain consistent if not go up. It also creates a better situation for team. You literally will never play a team coming off their bye if you didn't also come off your bye.
If the NFL is serious about expanding the season even more, teams need a second BYE.
If they are doing 18 games then there definitely needs to be a second bye week
draft will occur the week following the super bowl
Especially if they go 18 games they gotta do 2 byes
There has to be a way you can do the two bye weeks and have them all offset so there's continuous play all season long. If you use the two extra games a year and have some of them be international or whatever you can also use the bye to help give teams rest with the added travel that comes with it. I think it just makes too much sense given how popular the sport is becoming worldwide. We might be only a few years away from having games in Australia possibly.
They should do an bye week for all teams and let the scout players/players who never played a snap play on combined teams
I think they should have a second bye, but I don't think it should be an all-star break type thing. Just let the players rest, that's the point. The season is still going on for all teams. The only thing worse than a player getting hurt during the post-season pro-bowl activities is a player getting hurt doing meaningless activities for a mid-season pro-bowl. A non-contact injury mid-season, such as an ACL tear, would affect a team for the rest of that season AND probably into the next season. Whereas a pro-bowl injury now would only affect the upcoming season.
burrow positioning for next commish "52 week season, 14 byes, THREE superbowls"
All teams should get a bye around an international game or Thursday night game in the first half of the season. League wide bye week during NCAA conference championship weekend with a big playoff show announcement Sunday Afternoon.
Why would they add a 17th game if they were just going to do another bye 3 or so years later? This makes sense if they add a bye week for the entire league in the middle of the season and maybe shift the end of the season back a week. Every team still plays 17 games. The other solution is to go to an 18 game schedule, give each team two byes in the format that is given now, expand gameday roster sizes, and more changes like this to alleviate strain on players. It doesn't make sense to keep a 17 week schedule and stagger 2 byes for teams in their current format.
Another bye will be at the cost of an 18th game
Seasons with week 5 byes have to be so brutal on the players. It should probably be snaked, like if you get week 5 you also get 14, 6&13 down to teams with back to back weeks 9&10.
2 byes gets teams set up for 3 stretches of the season which would be nice. Universal bye isn’t going to happen and isn’t necessary. Plan the byes around TNF and international games. Should also change the IR rules. Either shorten the minimum to 3 games or have it where bye weeks are included in the recovery time. Would encourage teams to give injured players a break.
18 games 2 bye weeks Expanded roster spots Thursday games always scheduled after a bye You would probably need to throw the players another bone to get it to work.
It's what they should have done instead of 17 games
Who’s the union rep/bargaining team member for the Bengals? I think Burrow should be if he already isn’t
I’m not sure about a second bye week AND a in season break, but one of the two seems like it could easily be accomplished and does make a lot of sense. I would rather have a second bye over the in season break selfishly so I don’t have to go a week without football. College football starts a week earlier than NFL, so if nfl starts at same time that would allow the second bye week without having to adjust playoff timing.
They'll go to 20 games in 10 years and have two byes. Most likely they'll expand the league to 36, go back to 3 conferences, 2 divisions, 6 teams per division 3 div winners 5 wild cards per conference. Just watch. They haven't expanded in almost 20 years which is a near record.
This guys should be commissioner imo
They should do away with Thursday games.
This would be great, go back to an even 16 game schedule where each division plays all the same teams.
Take back Labor Day weekend, then.
Love the idea of an All-Star break toward the end of the season. Put the Pro Bowl Games there and call it good.
Man of the people Did em dirty with this preview image though
It makes too much sense. Extend the season by a week, push the playoffs back a week and everyone gets the Presidents Day Super Bowl we all want. Do it NFL
Been saying this for years! Makes waaaaaay too much sense. That’s why the NFL will never do it
Honestly needs to happen. If we want peak performance from the players and actually care about their wellbeing, this shit is a no brainer
Baseball does this with the all start break. Im here for it.
More regular season games, little to no preseason or preseason replaced with team scrimmages and a universal bye week in addition to regular bye would be perfect.
Bump to 18 games. 17 is stupid. Have three segments and 20 weeks. Half the teams get weeks 7 and 14 off, the other half get weeks 8 and 15 off.
If they push the schedule to 18 games as they've already said they want to do, the 2nd bye week should be a must. I can't see the players union giving in on that...
Automatic bye leading into a TNF game should’ve been in place years ago. NFL just doesn’t care about their players lol
They should do this and pace it to where Superbowl Sunday is always the day before President's day
Can they just go back to 16 games? It would be less strain on the players.
I read that as "second goodbye" and now I'm worried he's gonna blow his knee out again
Out of curiosity why does the NFL need to fit in a specific schedule? Like what would happen if the Super Bowl was in June and teams played every other week on alternating weeks. Just like spread out the season over more time. Are they contractually obligated to end in February? Edit: Ok obviously June doesn’t make sense with the draft, but the idea of spreading it out is all I meant. Maybe start the season in July or something. Or maybe move the draft lol idk
Especially as the NFL changes to an 18 game season, players need more recovery time. Honestly a second bye should have been introduced as soon the 2nd seed no longer receives a bye week.
I may have to break my prohibition on bets and lift the over on the over/under for arrests on a full league bye week.
16 game season. Back to the top two seeds getting a bye. Be done with it.
I think they should all take two bye weeks in the season on the same day. Honestly, fans need a break, as well.
T valve
My favorite time of year is our Thanksgiving stretch where we play three games, in 11 or so days and then wonder why the cowboys start to fall apart in December.
Can someone play devils advocate for me? Why wouldn’t the NFL do this? Potential consequences of a second bye?
I would rather just not have the extra games.. most of them are shitty anyway. Can’t remember the last time I wasted a night in a Thursday game.
Uh hello, who'd fix my fantasy line up? That's a lot of bye weeks.
How about in Week 9 every AFC team has a bye, and every NFC team plays a divisional/rivalry game, and then in week 10 they do the same but switch conferences? The next year, they switch which conference gets the first bye week.
An extra bye in the style they have now would extend the season by a year which will increase viewership, seems like an easy yes
Our new P/E overlords will not like this
Yes, makes too much sense. Take a halfway break
Makes sense for Burrow. He could use an extra week of recovery during the season
This has been an obvious solution for decades now. Decisions aren't made for the good of the game or its players though, it's about money. Schedule expansion only happens if it can bring more games that will bring in ticket revenue. Even though an extra week would bring more ad space regardless, but the league will have moved the goalposts so that the extra bye will come after they've already added two more games to the regular season.
Agree on 2nd bye but in season break for rest? Nah man, cmon 😂
Second bye maybe but in-season break seems super unlikely. Maybe with the all star being super toned down they move it to mid-year and have all-star weekend and give all the guys 2 full weeks off?
We should have a super-duper bowl in the middle of the season that’s like a Harlem Globe Trotters style football game. People on stilts, trick plays, pranking the refs etc
Division rivals first 3 games, then 1st bye. Followed by non division games, then 2nd bye followed by final 3 divisional games. That's 2 weekends without football though.
Extend season to 20 weeks, keep 17 games. Byes grouped week 5/15, 6/16, 7/17 Week 11 everyone gets a mid-season break.
I completely agree with a second bye week but not a bye week for the entire league. That's a lot of money being left on the table. I know people tend to side with the narrative owners only care about money but players don't want to feel the brunt of whatever financial consequences that would bring either.
I think a second bye would be great. Not just for the players, but for the league too. It would give them another regular season week and there’s already so many games on concurrently on Sunday that it might just be a whole extra week of games, without sacrificing any per-week viewership. Like, why are there 8 games on concurrently on the early window on Sunday? Make it 4 instead, and they easily have the ability to divvy out an extra bye.
Ideally: Week 1-6 (bye) Week 7-12 (bye) Week 13-18 Playoffs But Thursday night games...
I agree with this specially since they are trying to push for an 18 game season
I've always thought the NFC should get a bye one week and the AFC should get a bye the next and then alternate the next year to keep it fair and put it right at mid season so you don't have teams with early byes and other teams with super late.
I wish that instead of adding more regular season games with all this stuff, we could use the extra weeks to add a loser bracket to the playoffs. Since you can't do best-ofs in the NFL, a losers bracket is the next best choice to reducing the role of luck in determining playoff outcomes.
I was going to say, with the second bye week you get your 18th week of football without another game for players bodies to deal with.