Who Has Byes In The NFL This Week?
The NFL regular season is winding down and the playoff picture is starting to take shape.
WhoHasByes.com takes a look at which teams have clinched a playoff spot and first-round bye.
Teams with byes this week
This week, the following NFL teams have byes: Green Bay Packers, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, and Seattle Seahawks. This means that they will not be playing any games this week. These teams will have a chance to rest and recover before they play again.
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots have a bye this week.
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers will have a bye this week.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles have a bye this week.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs have a bye this week.
How byes are determined
In the NFL, there are 4 division in each conference. The division winners are the teams with the best record in each division and they advance to the playoffs. The 4 division winners in each conference are seeded 1-4 based on their record. The division winner with the best record is seeded 1 and so on.
Byes are given to the teams with the best record in each conference
During the NFL regular season, each team plays 16 games. At the end of the season, the teams with the best records in each conference earn a bye for the first week of the playoffs. The number of byes given to each conference depends on how many teams are in playoff contention. In recent years, six teams from each conference have made the playoffs, so each conference has had two byes.
The top seed in each conference gets a bye in the first round of the playoffs and automatically advances to the divisional round. The second seed also gets a bye, but they must play in the wildcard round against one of the lower seeds. In other words, a team can earn a bye either by winning their division or by having one of the best records in their conference (among all non-division winners).
The NFL tries to rotate which teams get byes from year to year so that no team gets an unfair advantage. For example, if one team always had a bye in odd-numbered years and another team always had a bye in even-numbered years, that would give those two teams an advantage over the other teams in their conferences. To make things fair,the NFL uses a system whereby each team can earn a maximum of two consecutive byes or three total byes over any five-year period.
The team with the best record in each conference gets a first-round bye
In the NFL, the team with the best record in each conference gets a first-round bye. The next two best teams in each conference are also given byes, but they have to play in the Wild Card round.
The four division winners with the best records in the league are seeded one through four based on their overall record, with the top seed playing the fourth seed, and so on.
The team with the second-best record in each conference gets a second-round bye
In the NFL, byes are determined by a team’s regular season record. The team with the best record in each conference gets a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The team with the second-best record in each conference gets a second-round bye. The next two teams in each conference with the best records regardless of division placement host Wild Card games.
The seeding process for byes and Wild Card home games is as follows:
1. Conference seed #1 goes to the team with the best record in each conference.
2. Conference seed #2 goes to the team with the second-best record in each conference.
3. Conference seeds #3 and #4 go to the next two teams in each conference with the best records regardless of division placement (these are your Wild Card teams).
4. Division seed #1 goes to the division winner with the best record in each conference.
5. Division seed #2 goes to the division winner with the second-best record in each conference, provided that this team isn’t also seeded #1 or #2 in its conference (see first two tiebreakers below).
6. Division seed #3 goes to the division winner with third-best record in each conference, provided that this team isn’t also seeded #1, #2 or #3 in its conference (see first three tiebreakers below).
When byes are announced
The NFL has week 11 byes for the Arizona Cardinals, Cincinnati Bengals, Indianapolis Colts, Philadelphia Eagles, and the Houston Texans.
Byes are announced at the end of the regular season
Byes are announced at the end of the regular season, once the playoff picture is set. Typically, teams with the best records will get the first and second week byes, while lower-seeded teams will get the later byes.
Byes are announced after all the playoff seeds have been determined
The NFL playoff bye weeks are set immediately after the regular season ends,
and they are not determined by record. The four division winners in each conference
get a bye in the first week of the playoffs, while the two wild-card teams face
each other. In all, six teams get a playoff bye each year.
