NFL Week 8 Proves Bye-Week Trend an Aberration

After his Philadelphia Eagles picked up their third win of the season against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, Andy Reid is now a combined 13-0 after a bye. 

According to ESPN, when he was asked about that success, he simply said, "You know, I get asked that every year, and I don’t think there’s any secret. You just do what you do. We’re going to practice just like we did last week and the week before that, and so on. So I don’t know if there’s any secret to it."

Up until Sunday, though, winning after a bye in 2011 seemed like an unsolvable mystery. Before Sunday, NFL teams were just 3-9 after a bye week. Those teams, however, were a combined 28-44.

On Sunday, those numbers were put to the test with six teams playing games coming off of bye weeks. Those teams—the Bills (4-2), Patriots (5-1), Bengals (4-2), Giants (4-2), Eagles (2-4) and 49ers (5-1)—were a combined 24-12 on the season. Those teams went a combined 5-1 on Sunday to pull the NFL's combined record after bye weeks to a much less abberational 8-10.

Bye-bye, bye week struggles.

The Giants came out ridiculously flat against the Dolphins, and it took a 14-point comeback for them to win their game against the winless Dolphins.

The Eagles came out scorching hot, though, picking up almost as many first downs (21) as points (24) in the first half. Philadelphia disposed of Dallas by a final score of 34-7.

Likewise, the Bengals and 49ers came out strong against their opponents, the Seahawks and the Browns respectively. Both teams won their games by double-digits.

The only loss of the week was the New England Patriots. If the Patriots came out flat on offense, their defense came out flatter than five-day old soda that had just been run over by a steamroller.

So what does this mean going forward?

Our initial thoughts on the bye-week struggles were from a sample size that, while not too small, proved to be an abberation due primarily to the record of the teams within that sample size. Before this week, NFL teams had a .250 win percentage off byes, but those teams had a combined win percentage of .389 all told.

This week alone, teams with a combined .667 win percentage went on to win .833 percent of their games after the bye.

This will be an interesting situation to monitor in the future, as the up-and-down play of teams off byes suggests that maybe the lockout has some sort of collateral effect on teams that may be using the week off to catch up on material that may have been breezed over in the shortened preseason and training camp.

This coming week, there are six teams coming off byes that are a combined 27-15 on the season, so there's a chance that the preconceived notions of bye-week struggles could be pushed even further into the rear-view.