Have you ever put all your byes on same 1-2 weeks? (1 Viewer)

[PudgieYngwie]

I'm considering building my team this year with starters from week 8-9 byes. The players available from those two bye weeks can still make a very competetive team. Weeks 3-7 you have a significant advantage but weeks 8-9 obviously you are seriously handicapped. You could also pull a trade or two in weeks 5-7 for a player(s) who have already had their bye and avoid one altogether. You also have weeks 1-7 to work the waiver wire and strengthen your bench before having to sit anyone.

Anyone ever tried this or been in a league with someone who did?

 

[The Jerk]

I'm considering building my team this year with starters from week 8-9 byes. The players available from those two bye weeks can still make a very competetive team. Weeks 3-7 you have a significant advantage but weeks 8-9 obviously you are seriously handicapped. You could also pull a trade or two in weeks 5-7 for a player(s) who have already had their bye and avoid one altogether. You also have weeks 1-7 to work the waiver wire and strengthen your bench before having to sit anyone.Anyone ever tried this or been in a league with someone who did?

First off, welcome to FBGs!I have not intentionally set out to build a team with a heavy bye week concentration. However, once or twice I have had several players off on one week and I don't mind it when it occurs "naturally". I understand the logic behind your thinking, but whatever strategic advantage you would have by being stronger for 5 weeks at the expense of weaker for 2 weeks is compromised by the restrictions you would face by constraining your selections to players with WEek 8 and 9 byes. Why lose value for an artificially created reason?It makes more sense to me just to more or less ignore byes (except for backup TE, PK, DT). This is what I do. So if my draft creates a team like you suggest - heavy on byes any one or two weeks - that's OK. But I'd rather not limit my selections in order to force this scenario for a very small advantage. If the byes are all on one week or two or if they are spread out through all seven weeks, I'd much rather have the best starting team (and backups) I can acquire.

 

[videoguy505]

I try to avoid the same bye weeks for starters in the same position. Like if my WR1 has a bye in 3, if I'm choosing between two WR2s that are in the same tier, a different bye week would be a tiebreaker.

To answer your question, I think the FF season is too short to dump 1 or 2 weeks to gain a small advantage for 5 others. There's a lot of random things that happen during a year--your RB1 sits a second half and you lose a game by a point, other guy's D returns a TD and you lose by a couple of points, etc--that you can't risk 15% of your season as "known losses".

On the other hand, if you're in an established league that you know is active--the rare league where the owners wheel and deal trades all season long, you can sometimes "sell short" on bye weeks. You can trade a player who hasn't had his bye for an equal player at the same position who has. This allows you to bypass having to sit your WR1, and the other owner will have to sit his WR1 twice--the player he traded away and the player he receives both have their byes while on his team. But trading players 1-for-1 in the same roster position, a WR-for-WR or RB-for-RB trade, is very difficult to accomplish. You have to know going into the draft that the other owners are the type to easily make this kind of rare trade.

Personally, I think you're better off in the long run all the way around by drafting quality backups, especially mid-round WRs. That position especially has a lot of variance, even among the top guys there are the 75-yard, no-TD games once in a while. If your top backup WR is good enough to start two to four games a year, you should be fine. If you're lucky you'll pick up 2 or 3 WRs in the WR25-45 range and one will hit a big season, playing at WR15 or so, and you can trade him or your WR2 and solve your byes that way and get great value in return.

 

[Iceman66]

I did once, by accident. It worked went 12-1 that season and won the whole thing. Not because of the bye situaltion but it helped a little