NFL Schedule Rest Days
The teams that benefit from extra rest and those that don’t
The release of the NFL schedule provides a lot of insights for the year. Not only do we find out the players of primetime games and those punished on Thursday night, but sportsbooks also release lines for every game on the season. The lines can be used to calculated the win expectation for that game. Adding up the win expectation for each game will give you a projected win total. Below is an example of the teams schedule, and some of the things I like to look at.
You can gather additional insights from the schedule, especially once we know which day each game will be played. With the dates of each game know we can calculate rest days. Knowing the number of days between games is helpful when handicapping games. The comparison of a teams rest days to the opponents rest days can highlight an advantage one team might have over the other.
The chart on the left shows the total rest advantage or disadvantage for each team this season. Each team gets a bye week during the season, so seeing a 7 day advantage or disadvantage shouldn’t be surprising. However, some teams are unfortunate, and must face multiple teams that are coming off of a bye. This can tip the scales to the far left, giving the team a real disadvantage in rest throughout the season.
Something else to keep in mind, while playing on Thursday Night Football is usually seen as a disadvantage, it actually works out as an advantage. When playing TNF both teams are playing on a short week, so neither team gets a rest advantage. But the next week, the TNF teams have 3 extra days of rest, and this rest can be very beneficial, especially later in the season.
So when you work through your favorite teams schedule this summer and check off the wins and losses, don’t forget to look for the little things. The game lines and days of the games can provide some additional insights that might make you change a win to a loss or better yet a loss to a win.
