Many fantasy experts will claim that fantasy football is the easiest fantasy sport to play, as there are only 17 weeks in the NFL season and generally only 16 weeks in a typical fantasy football season. While that may be true, there are many other factors fantasy football players must deal with that fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, and fantasy hockey players don’t have to deal with. These factors include higher injury rates, squad situations, weather conditions, and an element that is much more stressed in a short season; the dreaded Bye Week.
During the NFL season, the schedule will show that some teams will not play a game in one of the weeks beginning in week 4 and ending in week 10. At the low end, four NFL teams will have a week off during This 7- week stretch and up to six NFL teams will have a week off. This change was introduced by the NFL to give teams a chance to rest and recover from injury … so they say. Of course, the contract with the networks needed to be renegotiated and it was worth much more money to the league with an extra week of games to televise.
Those of us who love fantasy football also saw it as a change for the better, as it would give us one more week to compete in fantasy football season. However, the following season showed all fantasy players the downside of the change; our season became much more difficult to handle. The change not only affected the weekly allocation of starting positions, but it also added a new dimension to our draft logic. Now we need to look at the bye weeks within each position to make sure we will have enough players available to start each week; assuming we have no injuries or exchanges. This concern will give the manager a pause in evaluating a favorite player, or potential sleeper, to select and realize that he has already selected one or more players in his position who have the same Week off.
While most fantasy football websites require a league to accept this problem as a way of life, Maximum Fantasy Sports offers a solution. They provide a league setting option known as Bye Week Rollover. If you set up a fantasy football league with this option enabled, managers can choose to use the week before a Bye Week as the player’s performance during Bye Week. However, there is a catch; this decision must be made before the game starts in the previous week. For example, Team A has Adrian Peterson versus the Detroit Lions in week 5 and Peterson has a bye week in week 6. If the manager selects the checkbox to “pass on” Peterson’s points to his week parting previous At the start of the Week 5 game, Peterson’s points will also be locked in for Week 6. So, you get a 2-for-1 performance. Now, there’s no guarantee that Peterson will outperform any other player on the roster who might start. in Week 6 and if he gets hurt or has a bad game, you can’t change the fact that Adrian Peterson’s points are already scored for Week 6. In a showdown as the AP versus the Detroit Lions defense, you’d think this is a worthwhile risk. In other cases, like Jay Cutler facing the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 5 with a Week of Bye in Week 6, it may make more sense to let Cutler have his Bye Week on his bench and start another QB during Week 6. The Bye Week Rollover’s idea is to give your league managers an option on how to handle Bye Weeks without having to upset the players on their rosters.
