BY WILL POLADIAN, SPORTS ASSIGNMENT EDITOR
With the Buffalo Bills on a bye week this week, I feel that this would be a great time to take a look at why these weeks are important. This week is usually used to regroup and recover to continue the long NFL season.
Since the league decided to add another week to the schedule, I think it’s time to rethink the idea of adding an extra bye week. Some teams need it for recovery purposes and others may need it just to regroup after a bad stretch. I believe that playing 17 games in a season is just way too long to only have one bye week. Especially for teams that get it early or late in the season.
For example, look at last year’s Bills team. After their heartbreaking Hail Murray against the Arizona Cardinals in week nine, they used the bye week to regroup and recover and were able to go undefeated until the AFC Championship game where they ended up losing to the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
Now, this won’t happen for every team but with an extra week it could give teams a second look later in the season to where they stand and where they need to improve. It will also help to reduce the fatigue that teams get over several games. It would give an extra week back to help teams that are injury plagued like this year’s Cleveland Browns. They are down several key starters including QB Baker Mayfield and RB Nick Chubb just to name a couple. Even in college football where they play less games, they have two to three bye weeks.
So, there definitely will be a look at a change sooner rather than later. With more and more injuries happening to teams earlier in the season there definitely needs to be one bye week early in the year and one towards the end come around a month or two before playoff time. This would give them time to plan the rest of the year whether it be injuries or a playoff push.
I feel that this would be beneficial to all teams in the NFL. Even though it adds another week to the season I feel that it would be worth it in the end so we can have the best players and the best competition on the field at all times to bring in more fans and more money for the league. All in all, the NFL needs to add another bye week.
poladiwj20@bonaventure.edu
