It’s bye week season. For the next ten weeks (aside from Thanksgiving week), there are going to be anywhere from two to six teams getting a break from football. That’s a good thing in the grand scheme of things, but it’s not always a great thing.
Some teams could be stuck in the mud, and the bye gives them a chance to reset. Some teams can be rolling, and the bye week slows them down a little bit. So let’s look at when every bye week is, who has the best and worst bye week timing, and which games can be won or lost by them.
NFL bye week schedule for 2026
Week | Dates | Teams on bye |
|---|---|---|
Week 5 | Oct. 7 - 13 | Chiefs, Panthers |
Week 6 | Oct. 14 - 20 | Bengals, Lions, Dolphins, Vikings |
Week 7 | Oct. 21 - 27 | Bills, Chargers, Commanders, Jaguars |
Week 8 | Oct. 28 - Nov. 3 | Saints, Giants, 49ers, Texans |
Week 9 | Nov. 4 - 10 | Titans, Steelers |
Week 10 | Nov. 11 - 17 | Bears, Broncos, Eagles, Buccaneers |
Week 11 | Nov. 18 - 24 | Falcons, Browns, Packers, Rams, Patriots |
Week 12 | Nov. 25 - Dec. 1 | None, Thanksgiving |
Week 13 | Dec. 2 - 8 | Colts, Raiders, Jets, Ravens |
Week 14 | Dec. 9 - 15 | Cowboys, Cardinals |
When is every NFL team’s bye week?
Team | Bye Week |
|---|---|
Arizona Cardinals | Week 14 |
Atlanta Falcons | Week 11 |
Baltimore Ravens | Week 13 |
Buffalo Bills | Week 7 |
Carolina Panthers | Week 5 |
Chicago Bears | Week 10 |
Cincinnati Bengals | Week 6 |
Cleveland Browns | Week 11 |
Dallas Cowboys | Week 14 |
Denver Broncos | Week 10 |
Detroit Lions | Week 6 |
Green Bay Packers | Week 11 |
Houston Texans | Week 8 |
Indianapolis Colts | Week 13 |
Jacksonville Jaguars | Week 7 |
Kansas City Chiefs | Week 5 |
Las Vegas Raiders | Week 13 |
Los Angeles Chargers | Week 7 |
Los Angeles Rams | Week 11 |
Miami Dolphins | Week 6 |
Minnesota Vikings | Week 6 |
New England Patriots | Week 11 |
New Orleans Saints | Week 8 |
New York Giants | Week 8 |
New York Jets | Week 13 |
Philadelphia Eagles | Week 10 |
Pittsburgh Steelers | Week 9 |
San Francisco 49ers | Week 8 |
Seattle Seahawks | Week 11 |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Week 10 |
Tennessee Titans | Week 9 |
Washington Commanders | Week 7 |
Which teams have the best bye week timing?
Dallas Cowboys:
Every other year, the Cowboys make a run at the end of the regular season and then choke and die in the postseason. Is that because that’s what that team is? Yeah, definitely … Or maybe it’s because they always burn out come January.
This year, they have the last bye week possible, and they have never even come close to that in the past 20 years. So if the theory that this team hits a late-season wall is right, having a late-season vacation might be just the medicine that they need.
Again, their problem is that they’ve been a failure as an organization for the last three decades, that their owner makes bad decisions, and that he can’t get out of his own way … But yeah, this bye week is something new for them, and maybe it’ll help.
Buffalo Bills
The Bills need a break. They’ve been getting smoked on defense, and without D.J. Moore, their offense looks exactly as boring as it did last season (because it is the same offense). All they have to do is make it through a game against the Rams on Monday night, and then a game against the Raiders the week after that.
The fact of the matter is that both of those games are very losable for a team that’s on the verge of a scary season. If they can get to that bye with a record that’s above .500, they’ll have a chance to recalibrate, get healthy, self-scout, correct, and move forward confidently.
What happens after that? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Chicago Bears
The Bears are a team that’s ready to compete, but that roster has some big-ol’ holes in it, especially on defense. Lucky for them, the trade deadline exists. And even luckier for them, their bye week is the week after the deadline.
That means if they trade for someone, that guy is going to be able to have a week to get at least semi-comfortable on the team before they have to play.
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders' bye in Week 13 is kind of great for them. They’ll be coming off of two road games against the Broncos and the Browns, and then they’re set up for a perfect final stretch of the season.
Post-bye, they have three home games. Two of them are against divisional teams (Chargers and Broncos), and the third one is against the Titans. They follow that up with a game in Arizona … and then their regular season finale is in Kansas City.
That bye week is going to feel like a big deep breath before they dive headfirst into a postseason run … assuming they keep this season going as surprisingly well as it has been through four weeks.
Which teams have the worst bye week timing?
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles’ offense is coming off of a Week 4 loss where they converted exactly zero of their 12 third-downs. Two days later, Lane Johnson, the future Hall of Fame right tackle, retired. The day after that, they traded Cam Jurgens to the Ravens. That means that 60 percent of their offensive line are not Week 1 starters … And it’s a unit that’s already been struggling.
On top of that, DeVonta Smith, Saquon Barkley, and Tank Bigsby are out. Oh, and Dallas Goedert is coming back from a knee injury.
No team in the world needs a week to get its ducks in a row more than the Philadelphia Eagles right now. Instead, they’re getting ready to get on a plane to go play the Jaguars in London … Good thing they get a bye after that, right? Wrong. They have to wait until Week 10.
Carolina Panthers
Carolina is absolutely cooking right now. They’ve got all the momentum in the world after Bryce Young torched the Lions to the tune of 32 points on the Panthers' first Sunday Night Football game since 2016.
You could argue that this bye week is coming at a good time because they are dealing with a few injuries, but Jalen Coker is really the only one that’s going to help. Mike Jackson and Jaycee Horn are both on the IR, which means that they have to miss four games, not four weeks.
This whole thing seems like a speed bump for them. If there is an upside, it’s that they come off the bye and play an Eagles team that’s not only completely disjointed, but also coming back from playing in London without a bye week to rest.
Kansas City Chiefs
One superpower that Andy Reid has is that he’s awesome coming off of a bye. In the Patrick Mahomes era, the Chiefs have an 11-2 record (84.6 percent win rate), and since Reid took over in 2013, they have a 14-5 record (73.7 percent).
In a perfect world, they have a bye right before they play a tough team … But this is not a perfect world because they play the Chargers in Week 6. Five weeks ago (before we knew Herbert and company were unfathomably bad), this seemed like it might’ve been a pretty sweet situation. Not so much anymore.
Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens cannot do another season where Lamar Jackson is playing with some kind of lingering leg injury. He doesn’t go on IR. He plays at less than 75 percent of his ability. He’s significantly less mobile, and he never really gets better … But sure enough, that’s the road that they’re heading down again.
In Week 4, his ankle got rolled up on, and he missed the second half of the game. Now he’s not practicing, and he might be missing some games. A bye week in the next couple of weeks would be perfect right about now … but that’s not going to happen. As a matter of fact, their Week 13 bye is nowhere in sight.
Instead of a break, they get to play Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo, and Jacksonville over the next handful of weeks. If this were just a regular schedule for the Ravens, they’d probably end up dropping a winnable game or two … But that stretch is looking pretty brutal.
Which NFL games could swing on a team’s extra week of rest?
Week 7: Lions vs. Packers
The Lions defense has been truly abysmal over the first four weeks, and a lot of that is because their secondary is gut-wrenchingly terrible. Luckily, they have some help coming: their safeties, Pro Bowler Brian Branch and All-Pro Kerby Joseph, are eligible to come off the PUP list now.
Branch returned to practice this week (Week 5), and the hope is for Joseph to follow him at some point soon. Maybe Branch plays against the Cardinals this week, or maybe he hangs back for a minute.
If he opts for the latter, he’ll have the Week 6 bye to make sure he’s got everything buttoned up, and then he’ll be ready for the Packers in Week 7. Anything they can do on the backside of their defense is going to give them a huge boost, especially against the pass-heaviest offense in the NFL.
Week 9: Saints vs. Browns
Week 9 is a particularly terrible situation for the Browns. They’re playing their third straight road game (which teams lose far more often than they win), and they’re playing the Saints, who are coming off a Week 8 bye.
The Saints defense looks like a hot bag of uncoordinated trash right now, and the Browns offense is looking surprisingly … capable. New Orleans needs every edge they can get, and a bye in Week 8 is going to give them a pretty solid one going into Week 9.
Week 11: Broncos vs. Raiders
The Raiders have a pretty tough stretch of games from Week 9 to Week 11. It starts when they have to go to San Francisco, then they come home and play Seattle, then they have to go to Denver.
To make it worse, the Broncos will be coming off a bye in Week 11. As most of these prolific head coaches do, Sean Payton is really good after the bye. Since he went to Denver in 2023, his Broncos are 4-0 coming off a bye.
I’ve never been a fan of teams getting byes before divisional games, but to be fair, the schedule gods probably looked at this game and thought it wouldn’t matter. Unless the Chiefs slip up at some point, this game is going to be for the second place in the AFC West … and if the Chiefs do slip up? Wooo buddy, this is going to be a super important game.
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