I wrote an article about this earlier in the offseason - here it is for what it's worth to ya'.
Debunking the Myth of the Bye Week Blues
17 Jun 2007
Forgive me up front for gettin' my rant on for a minute. I know I'll never be mistaken for a guy that tells you what you want to hear, but rather someone who hopefully sheds some new light on an old situation for you. There are a select few "truisms" in F.F. that, through many years of personal experience I have found to be complete hogwash. The best way to navigate the gauntlet of those dreaded bye weeks is one such steaming pile that gets my blood pressure up every time I here it kicked around in fantasy message boards and other circles of strategy discussion....
Usually it's because bye week strategy is brought up by the guy who considers himself to be the fantasy guru of the bunch, with a statement along the lines of "Man I can't believe you took Palmer there. Since you drafted C.J. in the 2nd round it's still early in the draft and you've already put yourself in a real pinch for week 5".
I'm not sure who the brainiac was that first developed the standardized bye week strategy that is now contained in virually any piece of "Fantasy Football 101" literature in existence (and believe me, there's a lot of it). In case you're somewhat new to F.F., as in this is the FIRST article you've EVER read in your life about the game, standard bye week strategy reads something like this:
"All things being equal, you should try to spread out the bye weeks of the major skill positions (QB/RB/WR/TE) on your fantasy squad, so ideally you never have more than 1-2 starters on a bye at any given time". Cue the Guinness beer dudes screaming "Brilliant!" at each other.
Look, I cannot really blame someone for dreaming up this little gem many years ago. I cannot even blame the MILLIONS of fantasy players who live and die by this advice every single year. For starters, we're all spoonfed the bye week B.S. from the time we're fantasy pups. By year 4 or 5, it's as true to us as handcuffing your stud R.B. And the truth is - it SEEMS like common sense, it HAS to be true! What idiot wouldn't want to put his highest scoring potential team on the field each week?! Well, I'm the lone idiot over here with my hand held high.
So let's get to the nuts-n-bolts of it here. In the upcoming '07 season - fantasy ballers everywhere are faced with seven bye weeks (week 4 through week 10). For ease of dicussion and the length of this article's sake, let's just forget about K, DEF, I.D.P. etc., and account for a fairly standard starting fantasy roster of 1QB, 2RB's and 3WR's. According to our Bye Week Warfare Survival Guide the ideal scenario would be for ONE of them to each be on a bye weeks 4-10 this year. Also for considerations of your valuable time - let's imagine our replacement (#2QB, #3RB and #4WR) will perform at an average of 70% scoring power of the starter he's replacing - and I think that's being generous. When I waffle a # here and a few percentage pts. there - I calculate that on the average bye week you're probably fielding a team that is 90%-93% as effective as the team you'd be starting if your regular guy was NOT on a bye.
***I realize most of the numbers in the above paragraph are extremely subjective and would be more than happy to debate tham with you over in the forums.
But regardless of the ACTUAL scoring power of your team throughout the bye weeks, my point really remains the same. In this day and age of high-performance scoring - point per reception, .1 pts per knats ### of rushing yardage, -1.5 pts per turnover, etc. a more TRUE reflection of our player's contribution to the game is being represented than ever before on the fantasy scoreboard. Often in competitive leagues, weeks are decided by single point scoring differentials. The gap between the haves and have-nots is closing.
So all of this boils down to which would you rather have? A team with one weak link the majority of the season or a "wasted" week that you have virtually no shot shot of winning? Even after everything I've written here, I'm betting there are a healthy number of you who would rather field a "competitive" team each week. The bye week myth is that ingrained into us. I can already hear the argument forming against this article..."Well, all of my opponents are going through the exact same thing as I am - they all have players on bye weeks too!" And that argument is very correct, if you're facing anyone other than me and others like me this year.
As exhibit A, I present to you the bye weeks of my starters in a Masters League that I've recently drafted for this year:
QB1 - Week 5
RB1 - Week 6
RB2 - Week4
WR1 - Week 6
WR2 - Week 5
WR3 - Week 6
TE1 - Week 6
In week 5 I'm not looking real great, in week 6 it's over before kickoff - but in weeks 7, 8, 9 and 10 I don't have a SINGLE starter on a bye and my average competitor will be fielding a team that's spotting me "X" amount of points before the first kickoff is even in the air! I like my chances of recouping the one loss in week 6 I've virtually guaranteed my team over weeks 7-10. And in this league I was fortunate enough to grab Phillip Rivers as my backup QB so I'm not exactly throwing up the white flag for week 5 by any means.
Now let's wrap this thing up with a couple of caveats:
*Am I against taking bye weeks into account for positions where you traditionally only have two players on your roster (Ex: TE and Def)? No. Absolutely you should get a backup with a different bye.
*Did I ignore players with greater value in my draft just so I could grab the lesser player with a week 6 bye? No. Admittedly, I was fortunate to have the above players fall to me in the draft and most of them I would have selected anyway if they had byes in weeks 7-10.
*Am I saying that following traditional bye week advice is a recipe for disaster? No. If you happen to draft a team whose starters are spread out through the week 4-10 byes, fine. Please don't confuse this article for saying that by NOT clustering your player's with similar bye weeks your fantasy season is a disaster in the making.
I'm simply saying you cannot avoid bye weeks. EVERY player on your roster has to take his turn. And it's not a disaster if half of your starters are on a bye in week six. Your team will only be that much stronger through the remainder of the bye week blues - so turn that frown upside down bunky! As always, thanks for taking the time with me and feel free to gimme an ear full over in the forums if you disagree!
