Warning! Bye Weeks Are Upon Us! Look Ahead!

Week Six has arrived, and with it comes our first taste of bye weeks. Many of you reading this understand bye weeks are something you just have to deal with. However, in this article, I am going to offer you some advice on how to deal with bye weeks, not only this year but in the years ahead.

First things first. What teams are on Bye in what weeks? Here is the list of teams on byes with relevant players listed with them.

Bye Weeks:

Week 6:

New York Jets (Corey Davis, Jamison Crowder)

San Francisco 49ers (Trey Lance, Elijah Mitchell, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle)

Atlanta Falcons (Mike Davis, Cordarrelle Patterson, Calvin Ridley, Kyle Pitts, Younghoe Koo)

New Orleans Saints (Alvin Kamara)

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Week 7:

Pittsburgh Steelers (Najee Harris, Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool)

Dallas Cowboys (Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, CeeDee Lamb, Amari Cooper, Dalton Schultz, Greg Zuerlein)

Buffalo Bills (Josh Allen, Zack Moss, Devin Singletary, Stefon Diggs, Emmanuel Sanders, Dawson Knox, Tyler Bass)

Minnesota Vikings (Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, Greg Joseph)

Jacksonville Jaguars (James Robinson, Marvin Jones)

Los Angeles Chargers (Justin Herbert, Austin Ekeler, Keenan Allen, Mike Williams)

Week 8:

Baltimore Ravens (Lamar Jackson, Marquise Brown, Mark Andrews, Justin Tucker)

Las Vegas Raiders (Derek Carr, Josh Jacobs, Hunter Renfrow, Darren Waller, Daniel Carlson)

Week 9:

Detroit Lions (D’Andre Swift, Jamaal Williams, TJ Hockenson)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Tom Brady, Leonard Fournette, Antonio Brown, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski, Ryan Succop)

Washington Football Team (Antonio Gibson, Terry McLaurin, Logan Thomas)

Seattle Seahawks (Russell Wilson, Chris Carson, Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf)

Week 10:

Chicago Bears (Justin Fields, David Montgomery, Allen Robinson)

Houston Texans (Brandin Cooks)

New York Giants (Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, Kadarius Toney, Kenny Golladay, Graham Gano)

Cincinnati Bengals (Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd)

Week 11:

Los Angeles Rams (Matthew Stafford, Darrell Henderson, Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, Tyler Higbee, Matt Gay)

Denver Broncos (Melvin Gordon, Javonte Williams, Jerry Jeudy, Courtland Sutton, Noah Fant, Brandon McManus)

Week 12:

Arizona Cardinals (Kyler Murray, James Conner, Chase Edmonds, Deandre Hopkins, Rondale Moore, Christian Kirk, AJ Green, Matt Prater)

Kansas City Chiefs (Patrick Mahomes, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce)

Week 13:

Carolina Panthers (Christian McCaffrey, DJ Moore)

Green Bay Packers (Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Jones, Davante Adams, Mason Crosby)

Cleveland Browns (Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, Odell Beckham Jr)

Tennessee Titans (Ryan Tannehill, Derrick Henry, AJ Brown, Julio Jones)

Week 14:

Miami Dolphins (Myles Gaskin, Jaylen Waddle, Mike Geisicki)

New England Patriots (Nick Folk)

Philadelphia Eagles (Jalen Hurts, Miles Sanders, Devonta Smith, Zach Ertz, Dallas Goedert)

Indianapolis Colts (Jonathan Taylor, Michael Pittman)

Week 7 Look Ahead + Waivers Strategy

I listed out all the relevant players for you so you can take a look at players you may have and see how many you have off in certain weeks. As an example, in one of my leagues, I am loaded on Cowboys, Bills, Vikings, and Steelers. I am really in trouble for next week’s byes and need to get a QB, TE, and another FLEX on my team just to field a starting lineup because of some injuries.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you may be having the same issue. So here is my advice. Get ahead of it now. On waivers or free agency this week, try to grab a QB if you have Dak/Josh Allen/Herbert. Try to grab your TE for next week if you have Knox/Schultz. If you are looking at waivers for this week and you see Sanders/Claypool/Knox, just keep in mind that they will be off next week. If you can afford the bench spot, I would love to pick up any of those players. You just need to manage your team the best possible way with 6 teams on a bye.

If you are looking to get ahead, here are a few people I would be targeting as Week 7 Bye Replacements:

QB Ryan Tannehill, TEN

QB Trey Lance/Jimmy Garroppolo, SF

QB Tua Tagovailoa, MIA

RB Rhamondre Stevenson/Brandon Bolden, NE

RB Myles Gaskin, MIA

WR Rondale Moore, AZ

WR Marquez Callaway, NO

WR Mecole Hardman, KC

TE Ross Dwelley, SF

TE Dan Arnold, CAR

You can do the same thing for other future weeks like Week 12 with the Cardinals and Chiefs, or Week 13 with CMC, Aaron Jones, Henry, Chubb, and Hunt all on a bye. Always keep your eye at least one week ahead when it comes to byes to make sure you can take advantage of waivers when no one else is paying attention.

This is especially the case with streamers. Many of you may stream defenses, so if you can afford the roster spot, look ahead one week and try to snag next week’s top defense before anyone else can. The same rule applies to QBs, TEs, and Ks. It is just more important with byes playing a factor the rest of the fantasy regular season.

Drafting Strategy

I know the season is well underway and putting some draft strategy in this article will likely be completely forgotten come next August. However, I’d like to present you with two drafting strategies when it comes to bye weeks.

Stack Up Players With THE SAME Bye

Stay with me here. On the surface, this makes no sense. I just told you about how I am screwed in a league because I ended up with a team that has all similar byes and I am scrambling for Week 7.

However, take a step back and think about it like this. If you happen to stack a lot of your starters with the same bye week, then you are going to likely take a loss in that week. But, you will have the advantage almost every other week. Most fantasy managers are not thinking this way. They want to minimize their risk weekly and hope they squeak out wins. However, if you are stronger every single week but one, in theory, you have a better shot at winning in the other weeks.

Now, this strategy is not something I recommend attempting to go for. But if you draft your best possible team and a lot of them have the same bye, it isn’t the end of the world. Don’t go into the draft and try to draft all players with the same bye.

One Bye Week For Each Backup

This one is fairly common but can be a bit difficult to achieve. You were already making sure your starting QB and backup QB don’t have the same bye. Well, you might as well try and make sure that none of your starting RBs have the same bye as your top backup RB. The same idea would apply to your WRs.

You always want to draft the best players possible, and injuries always happen in football. But why go into the season with your top RB having a week 7 bye and your top bench RB (that would sub in for your starter) with the same week 7 bye? Then you would have to go to the waiver wire or your second-best bench RB and have them start for you in a pinch. That is a yikes from me.

If you want to pay attention to byes in the draft, this is the most important thing to keep an eye on. Making sure your top backup doesn’t have the same bye as your starter(s).

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