The 2006 Bye Week Secret

The 2006 fantasy football season, marks the first year that no teams will have a bye week in week 10 of the NFL season. If you take a look at our grid, you will notice that the week 10 byes have been placed in week 6 and 7. This means that week 6 and 7 will both see 6 NFL teams sit out, as opposed to the usual 4 teams that have the bye week off.

This little known fact can dramatically affect your fantasy football season and change the way you should draft. More than ever, you have to be aware of bye weeks and how many players from each team you have on your squad. There are two ways to approach this dilemma.

Lose:
You can elect to draft the majority of your starters from teams that have the week 6 bye week. In this scenario, you will most likely lose that one game. This is not a bad way to go, because the week 6 byes include teams like; CLE, GB, IND, JAX, MIN, and NE. You can also use this strategy for week 7 as well. The theory is to tank one week, but remain strong throughout the rest of the season.

Win:
You can also try to space out your players bye weeks so as to avoid more than one player on a bye each week. However, with so many teams on bye weeks during weeks 6 and 7, this may be difficult to accomplish. You will have to sit down and carefully analyze who is on what team and target specific players with specific bye weeks. You may not take the top flight WR that you are targetting, but the second best because of the bye week dilemma.

Our strategy:
We recommend trying to avoid the players with the week 6 and 7 bye weeks. Try to chose players with bye weeks in weeks 8 and 9. This means that you will have a strong team for the majority of the fantasy season. Imagine the scrambling that will happen when other managers realize that they don't have any players in weeks 6 and 7? You could take advantage of these poor managers and make some nice trades.

Another strategy you could employ would be choosing players with bye weeks in weeks 3 and 4 and weathering an early storm for a strong finish. Imagine the possibilities if a manager on the brink of going to the playoffs realizes that he has no players in week 7 and would like to make trades with you? You've already guaranteed yourself a spot, and don't need a week 7 victory. You could use this to your advantage and trade for some great players down the stretch that will help you in the playoffs. Take advantage of desperate managers.