What does Bye mean in Fantasy Football?

Fantasy football is officially back. The 2024 NFL season is off and running. The fantasy football season has also begun.

Football is a gruesome sport. There’s a lot of factors deciding the performance of the player. The NFL athletes are constantly traveling between home games and away games for 18 weeks, players take a lot of physical hits and there’s also the risk of injuries. It’s a tiring sport.

Hence every team is given a bye week in between those 18 weeks during the regular season. This is the time for the teams, the players and the coaches to get a breather, and comeback.

While the concept of bye is understood in the NFL, what does that mean in fantasy football? And how does bye affect the course of the fantasy football season?

This page will explain all you need to know about bye in fantasy football.

Trading the right players at the right time is important to win the 2024 fantasy football season. Be sure to check out our free Fantasy Trade Calculator to lock down your squad for the year.

What does Bye mean in fantasy football?

In the middle of the season, each team is scheduled to have one week where they do not play a game. That week is termed a bye week. We saw that bye weeks are generally for the NFL teams. Every NFL team will have a bye week in the course of their 18-week regular season. Therefore every single player will also have one bye week.

What this means is that if a particular team has a bye week in the NFL, then the player of that particular team will not be playing in fantasy football for that week.

Let’s understand this with an example.

Take the team Philadelphia Eagles. In the 2024 NFL season, the Eagles are supposed to have a bye week in Week 5. This will mean that the players of the Eagles squad will not be active in Week 5.

If your fantasy team has multiple players from the Eagles, let’s say Jalen Hurts and A. J. Brown, then both of these players will not be playing in fantasy football in Week 5 when the Eagles have bye week.

The fantasy football manager has to find their replacements accordingly based on the bye week.

Also Read: What is Waiver Wire in Fantasy Football? How does it work?

How does Bye weeks affect fantasy football season?

Bye weeks can be a problem for the fantasy football manager, if they don’t prepare. This is why planning and strategizing is really important, especially before the fantasy football draft.

Once the schedule is out, and as managers are preparing for the players to pick, they will have to consider the bye weeks of the teams and make sure that they are not drafting multiple players from the same team as it will affect their fantasy team and the playoff chances.

Some of the most important positions that the fantasy football managers need to target in the fantasy draft are the positions of quarterback, wide receiver, running back and tight end. These offensive players help the managers score the most fantasy points. Hence drafting sufficient and enough backups for these players is really crucial.

Another reason why Bye weeks are important is because they help the fantasy managers to plan and strategize the starter replacements. These players are also part of the teams in the NFL and they also have bye weeks. However understanding bye weeks will help you pick the replacements whose bye weeks don’t clash with your team’s starter players’ bye weeks.

Also Read: How To Play Fantasy Footbal in 2024?- A Complete Beginner’s Guide