By Dan O’Shea
Week 5 is the start of NFL bye weeks, which can wreak havoc on your fantasy football team if you failed to check players’ bye weeks when you originally drafted them.
I don’t necessarily try to make a lot of draft decisions around bye weeks, but if you draft two RBs you really like and they both have the same bye week, you shouldn’t wait too long before grabbing a third and fourth who won’t cause an automatic loss for you that week.
Of course, there are reasons to love bye weeks, too. Here are just a few.
1) Tony Romo can’t hurt you during Week 5: The Dallas Cowboys are on bye this week. If you own Romo, I question your judgement to begin with, but if you have managed to stick with him this far, consider Week 5 your chance to experiment with your back-up or a waiver wire pick-up.
2) You can catch up if you’re behind: If there are still unbeaten teams in your league, their reign of terror will likely end in the coming weeks. Let’s just hope you’re due for the match-up when three or four of the league leader’s players are on bye.
3) You can pad your lead: If you’re already ahead in the standings and you drafted carefully, bye weeks may not hurt you much. Plus, they offer the chance to be aggressive on the waiver wire, dropping guys who haven’t produced much yet and have a bye coming soon for someone who’s moving up the charts.
4) It’s the best time to experiment: In the first four weeks of the season, you don’t want to get too panicky and dump guys left and right just to pick up the flavor of the week. But bye weeks give you the chance to size up waiver pick-ups that could be long-term investments, especially if your pick-up has great matchups on deck and the player you’re shipping out doesn’t.
5) Bye weeks are trading time: If you’re in the middle of the pack, now is your time to be aggressive, not only on the wire, but also at the trading table. Early in the week, scope out another team that has players on bye and needs alternatives. Offer a trade with obvious short-term upside for the other team but a good chance at long-term pay-off for you.
Expert Wire
* Bleacher Report has nifty sortable weekly schedules to help you see which teams are on bye each week.
* NFL Soup showcases a couple QBs worth picking up if you’re sick of Romo. Matt Hasselbeck is still barely 50% owned in Yahoo! leagues despite a strong first quarter.
* ESPN likes Hasselbeck, too, but says it’s time to 86 OchoCinco.
–
Comments welcome.
Posted on October 4, 2011