NFL Supercoach | The Ultimate Guide to Bye Planning

This week marks the first bye weeks of the season, which may come as a surprise to some who are new to following the NFL, but hopefully not.

The NFL byes for this season are scheduled between week 5 and week 14, excluding week 13.

With at least two teams and up to six teams on the bye in any given week.

If you own players from these teams on the bye, they won’t score anything for that week, and therefore you should ideally move them to your bench or alternatively trade them out of your team.

If you want to really excel in Supercoach, bye planning is a crucial component to consider, and hopefully this article can assist you with that.

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Bye Schedule

You can’t bye plan effectively without knowing which teams are on the bye and in which weeks!

Here is a simple table that outlines the full NFL bye schedule for this season.

Week	Teams on Bye	# of Teams
Week 5	Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers	4
Week 6	Houston Texans, Minnesota Vikings	2
Week 7	Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills	2
Week 8	Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks	6
Week 9	Cleveland Browns, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers	4
Week 10	Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, Tennessee Titans	4
Week 11	Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints	2
Week 12	Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, Miami Dolphins, Washington Commanders	4
Week 14	Carolina Panthers, New England Patriots, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers	4

If you are a seasonal NRL Supercoach manager like myself, you would be relieved to hear that each NFL team only has one bye this season, and there are no ‘major bye rounds’ to navigate.

As you can see in the table, however, some weeks are going to be much more difficult to navigate than others.

Although you should plan for every bye week, there are a few weeks that might require a bit of extra attention.

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Bye weeks to watch out for

We will go through a couple weeks specifically with highly-owned players on the bye, which may leave you a player or two short at a certain position.

I do this to give examples of similar situations a lot of us Supercoachers may be in, however, it is important to look at your own team and players you own, as it will be different for everyone.

Week 7

Now, week 7 previously presented a massive problem of both Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen being on the bye.

Fortunately, for us Supercoachers, this problem might have fixed itself for us as Lamar Jackson suffered a hamstring injury last week vs the Cheifs.

I’m sure most Supercoachers, like me, would have both Allen and Jackson, one in their starting quarterback slot and one in their flex.

This would leave our teams at least one player short if you didn’t trade either quarterback.

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At the time of writing, Lamar Jackson has yet to be officially ruled out.

However, signs are pointing towards a few weeks on the sideline for Jackson, and a return in Week 8 after their bye.

I am personally waiting for Jackson to be ruled out officially before pulling the trigger on a trade.

I would be shocked if he plays this weekend, and even just missing this week would be enough for me to trade him out.

It’s a two birds with one stone type of situation: trade out an injured Lamar while also preparing your team for the week 7 bye.

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Let’s say you do trade out Lamar, but you still have Josh Allen, you will still need your bench quarterback to play in week 7.

So if you are like me and have J.J. McCarthy still sitting there, you would be desperately hoping he is back as the Vikings’ starting quarterback by then.

If you are not confident in this, you might want to look towards Jaxson Dart as a trade-in option to cover for you that week.

Week 8

As shown in the table above, week 8 represents the biggest bye week of the season with six teams on the bye.

Six teams not playing is going to be hard to navigate in itself, but to make it even more difficult, these teams contain a lot of highly-owned Supercoach players.

Notable players that will be on the bye in week 8 include: Trey McBride, Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St.Brown, Ashton Jeanty, Brock Bowers, Puka Nacua, and Jaxson Smith-Njigba.

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Hopefully not, but you may also own a POD or two from these teams, which could make life even harder for you.

There are a few obstacle you may face, depending on what players you own of course.

If you own, or are planning to own Nacua, St.Brown, and JSN, then you will be left at least one receiver short in week 8.

As there are only two bench spots for the receiver position, even if you can cover for them that week, you will still have one bye player left in your starting lineup.

You could face a similar issue at the tight end position if you own both Bowers and McBride, as there is only one bench tight end spot available.

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Tips for bye planning

So now we have identified a few of the annoying problems we are going to face, how do we actually deal with them, and hopefully plan around them?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic formula or black and white rulebook for you to follow, but I can provide you with a few things to consider…

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Vice-captain looping

Being left a player short isn’t always a bad thing as it can give you a free crack at a vice-captain loop, as bye players won’t lockout until the very last rolling lockout of the week.

In case you don’t understand this concept yet, be sure to check out Eden’s final word this week, which explains this in detail.

How is this a tip to bye planning?

Well, let’s say you find yourself a player short one week due to these bye players.

Before making a trade to get a full team, you can wait to see how your vice captain performs, and if he does well, you can utilise the bye player as a free-loop option and not have to waste a trade.

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Consider byes before trading

Now this is something that direclty applies to me this week.

As mentioned above, week 8 will see Puka, St. Brown and JSN all on the bye.

I already own Puka and JSN, and am looking to trade in St. Brown this week for Nabers.

This is where you need to personally weigh up the point scoring potential vs the bye problem you may face in week 8.

For me, I think St. Brown is a season long-keeper and a tier above any other wide receiver that I don’t already have in my team.

Additionally, there is still three weeks until the bye which means three performances from St. Brown I don’t want to miss out on.

I think if you want a player, trade him in, even if he doesn’t work perfectly regarding your team’s bye set up.

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However, bye planning may become decisive if you are 50/50 between two players.

For example, I am also considering upgrading one of my running backs to one of Jahmyr Gibbs or Jonathan Taylor this week.

I don’t think there is much between these two guys, but Gibbs misses week 8 where I am already missing many other players, so I am leaning towards going JT instead.

Don’t overprioritise bye-planning

Am I being hypocritical and telling you everything I have just talked about isn’t actually that important?

Maybe but not neccessarily.

I just think you should take all this talk about bye planning with a grain of salt.

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I say this because being a player or two short one week isn’t going to end your Supercoach season.

What might ruin your season is using up all your trades by week 14 because you were too busy trading everyone on a bye.

At the end of the day, it’s in the name, it is all about planning well.

Try avoid being multiple players short any given week, but also ensure you manage your trades affectively to get you through the season.

It will be differnt for everyone, but hopefully after reading this you feel much more prepared to tackle the next few months of NFL Supercoach and the many byes to come with it.