NFL Schedule Release: The Worst Bye Weeks of 2024

The NFL schedule release is pretty silly. We already know who everybody is playing, this is just the order. It’s like telling someone playing poker that they’ll get a straight but then being all excited when you tell them what order the cards will come in.

On the other hand, it gets us some fun team videos. And of course, the biggest thing we learn for fantasy football purposes is when teams aren’t playing.

Schedule release day tells us who plays whom and when, and sure, there’s some information there — rest advantages, travel advantages, weird Wednesday games because the league is greedy, and so on. But for 90% of our fantasy football rosters, it won’t matter much, because we either play them or we don’t. But when a player is on a bye, we know we can’t play him. That’s a different matter altogether.

So with the schedule now fully announced, below I’m going to go through the 2024 bye schedule to try to find what we need to know, what we can do to overcome the absences, and what week of the 2024 season is our Byepocalypse Week.

2024 NFL Schedule Release: The Bye Weeks

Here are the byes for the 2024 season:

There are no byes in Week 13 because of Thanksgiving, like normal. There are no byes in Week 8 — again, like last year, and again, I don’t really know why. It’s just like the league thinks messing with the last week of the fantasy regular season is fun and so the Week 8 byes go to Week 14. Mean of them, not going to lie.

Week 5 (Eagles, Chargers, Lions, Titans)

Key names on a bye (in order of their place in the FTN Fantasy rankings):

• Quarterback: Jalen Hurts, Jared Goff, Justin Herbert
• Running Back: Jahmyr Gibbs, Saquon Barkley, Tony Pollard
• Wide Receiver: Amon-Ra St. Brown, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith
• Tight End: Sam LaPorta, Dallas Goedert

The dissolution of the Chargers’ passing game kind of makes this a 3.5-team bye week, and if Will Levis isn’t up to the challenge, it’s more of a two-teamer. But the other two are pretty significant. Losing A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Amon-Ra St. Brown, DeAndre Hopkins and Calvin Ridley is going to make receiver a trial in Week 5, and Jahmyr Gibbs, Saquon Barkley and Tony Pollard being off means we’re down three starting running backs.

This will be a rough week, especially as the first bye, even with the Chargers not commanding much attention. And the worst part is, with no byes before it, you won’t have the opportunity to stash players while other managers are preoccupied with earlier byes.

Week 6 (Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins, Vikings)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, Tua Tagovailoa, Matthew Stafford
• Running Back: Kyren Williams, De’Von Achane, Isiah Pacheco, Aaron Jones
• Wide Receiver: Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, Puka Nacua, Cooper Kupp, Jaylen Waddle
• Tight End: Travis Kelce, T.J. Hockenson

Woof. That’s at least two and up to four starting quarterbacks, at least five and up to seven or eight starting receivers, two elite tight ends (assuming T.J. Hockenson is back and healthy) and between three and five starting running backs. Six-bye weeks are almost always tougher than four-bye weeks, but this is going to be a brutal week.

Week 7 (Bears, Cowboys)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Dak Prescott, Caleb Williams
• Running Back: D’Andre Swift
• Wide Receiver: CeeDee Lamb, DJ Moore, Keenan Allen
• Tight End: Jake Ferguson, Cole Kmet

Nice little palate cleanser after the first two weeks of byes are so brutal. Sure, being down CeeDee Lamb, DJ Moore and Keenan Allen (plus Rome Odunze and Brandin Cooks) hurts, but there’s no guaranteed starter at running back or tight end on either of these teams, and only Dak is a sure starter at quarterback. Light week, definitely not byepocalyptic.

Week 9 (49ers, Steelers)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Brock Purdy
• Running Back: Christian McCaffrey
• Wide Receiver: Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, George Pickens
• Tight End: George Kittle, Pat Freiermuth

So it’s not just that the league goes with zero byes in Week 8; there are also very light-bye weeks on either side. Has it been addressed? Do we know why they do that? I’ve never seen it, if so.

Anyway, any time the 49ers are on a bye it’s pretty brutal, because that’s four or five sure fantasy starters on the shelf. Pairing that with a Steelers team that might only have one is nice of the league.

Week 10 (Browns, Packers, Raiders, Seahawks)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Jordan Love
• Running Back: Josh Jacobs, Kenneth Walker, Nick Chubb
• Wide Receiver: Davante Adams, DK Metcalf, Amari Cooper
• Tight End: David Njoku, Brock Bowers

These are three good teams, with three good offenses, and somehow, Davante Adams is the only surefire, going-to-make-it-hurt receiver out (and he’s not even on one of the three), David Njoku the only tight end. Even running back — especially if Nick Chubb doesn’t bounce back to his old self — isn’t crushing. Four byes is a lot, but this isn’t so bad.

Week 11 (Cardinals, Panthers, Buccaneers, Giants)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Kyler Murray
• Running Back: Rachaad White, James Conner
• Wide Receiver: Marvin Harrison Jr., Mike Evans, Malik Nabers
• Tight End: Trey McBride

A lot of question marks! How do Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers do in Year 1? Can Bryce Young build in Year 2? Was Baker’s first year in Tampa for real or a blip? This bye could cost us three or four fantasy starters; it could cost us seven or more. It’s far from the most brutal either way.

Week 12 (Falcons, Bills, Bengals, Jaguars, Saints, Jets)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Kirk Cousins
• Running Back: Breece Hall, Bijan Robinson, Travis Etienne, James Cook, Alvin Kamara
• Wide Receiver: Ja’Marr Chase, Garrett Wilson, Drake London, Chris Olave, Tee Higgins
• Tight End: Kyle Pitts, Evan Engram, Dalton Kincaid

If you could grab the most intimidating forms of each of these offenses from the last five years or so, you could form a Voltron of bye week fear. These days, though, the Saints and Bills are less scary than they used to be, and the Jaguars might have taken a step back as well. The Bengals are a tough out, and if Kirk Cousins/Aaron Rodgers can rebound from their torn Achilles, they could head up some good offenses as well. Running back is very rough. Still, as six-bye weeks go, this could be way worse.

Week 14 (Ravens, Broncos, Texans, Colts, Patriots, Commanders)

Key names on a bye:

• Quarterback: Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson
• Running Back: Jonathan Taylor, Derrick Henry, Joe Mixon, Rhamondre Stevenson
• Wide Receiver: Michael Pittman Jr., Nico Collins, Stefon Diggs
• Tight End: Mark Andrews

So losing the Ravens and Texans hurts. Assuming Anthony Richardson and Jayden Daniels can scamper around and stay healthy this deep into the season, the Colts and Commanders hurt a fair amount as well. The Broncos and Patriots? They might have two fantasy starters on their two rosters combined … and they might not even have that many.

Which Week Is the 2024 Byemageddon?

I just realized I called it the Byepocalypse earlier, and I just switched to Byemageddon. I like ‘em both, though, so you can choose your own adventure.

Anyway, for all the complaints I have about how the team does its byes, I feel like there was some effort made in this year’s schedule to not be as brutal in fantasy as previous years. (Or it was a coincidence—the corollary to “Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence” is “Never ascribe to competence that which can be explained by fortuitousness.”) There have been years where there were six byes and all (or almost all) of the teams were crushing to be without. This year, we have two six-bye weeks, and neither of them feels that brutal. It would be hard to have a week of byes that doesn’t cause some pain, but we escaped relatively unscathed in 2024.

The end result is, despite us having two weeks with six teams on bye, the Byemageddon/Byepocalypse week of the 2024 NFL season is neither of those. So considering that, and considering that we also have two two-bye weeks — and it’s basically impossible for a two-bye week to be the worst bye week of the season — we have to hunt among the four-bye weeks for our most painful slate. That leaves us with:

• Week 5 (Eagles, Chargers, Lions, Titans)
• Week 6 (Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins, Vikings)
• Week 10 (Browns, Packers, Raiders, Seahawks)
• Week 11 (Cardinals, Panthers, Buccaneers, Giants)

I can’t very well claim the Chargers as currently constructed are among the most brutal bye weeks. Same for the Giants and Raiders.

No, for 2024, the worst bye week of the season is extremely clear, and it comes early in the season, meaning there will have been less roster churn by the point and potentially make it even harder to fill in.

Week 6 Is the Fantasy Byemageddon Week of the 2024 NFL season.