How Effective Is The First Round Bye?

it can, and does, go either way. You never really know until after the game is played IMO. Just like people were drawing conclusions about the Packers and Cardinals different tactics in Week 17 and whether it would help or hinder (with most saying the Packers gained an advantage), we didn’t really know for sure until after the Wild Card game.

having to play in 2 playoff games before reaching the super bowl would be the only advantage in my opinion. Lets face it, the Cardinals have played excellent on the road this year, at 6-2 (almost 7-1 thx vince). They have proven they can win anywhere this year. We need to strike first, we cannot afford to fall too far behind or else noise will became a factor. GO CARDS!!!!!!

If you flip a coin, it can only come up either heads or tails. When a team is in a playoff game, they can only either win or lose. I don’t think any team would elect to not have a bye week if given a choice. When a team claims to prefer not having a bye week, it’s only because they don’t have one.

The Cardinals won in OT without their offense ever being on the field. But, had they won the coin toss, they wouldn’t have chosen that option as a way to ensure victory.

Saints have had to sit starters for three weeks now. They struggled to win against teams like the Rams and Redskins and lost the last three straight games. They seemed to lose their drive halfway through the season. Their defense is back but overall the Saints have only had about 5 days to truly prepare after seeing the Cardinals win. I don’t like Brees in the playoffs, Warner will be prepared, Wells should get some good runs in to control the game, and the Cardinals defense and special teams are stronger. I don’t think the bye week will help the Saints have any advantage in the game.

i think its all bulls—-. yall were the team i least wanted to play, because i thought that yall have the best team (when your hot). anyway, good luck and for those of you going to the game, im sure you will have a blast in the quarter.

Consider the playoffs to be exams you need to pass to earn your degree.
Would you want to take 3 exams or 4?

It was extremely benificial we needed the time to heal we have had lots of injuries and with the extra week they got to rest when they need to
If tou look at our injury report our players are back to practise and thats the most important thing healthy well rested team with time to practise

I think all teams want the bye week to help with the bumps and bruises. I think the more important reason is being at home and the energy and the noise the crowd brings. I think too much is being said about the Saints having not won in a month. Down the stretch, they beat NE at home, WASH in Wash, ATL in Atl. They lost to a good Cowboys team who were playing for their playoff lives. Lost at Carolina and I don’t care who you are, it’s tough to win there. The only head stratcher was the TB game at home. I think the game against the Cards, the Saints will score at least 35. I think Warner is good for 3 TDs which leave the running game with 2 TDs. So it may come down to a field goal again. Rackers better not miss this time.

Great team, but they always wrap up the first round bye and rest their starters.

Then they wind up losing in the playoffs, besides when the beat the Bears in the Super Bowl I don’t think they ever played all out throughout the season, and if I recall correctly, they were the #3 seed that year so they didn’t even get a first round bye.

Very effective, looking at the Cards overall scoring performance , the Cards scored 375 points to opponents 350 points which is about a net 3 points advantage per game and that surfaced last week winning in overtime by 6 points.
Where as the Saints have out scored there opponents by 11 points per game on advantage .
The Saints have rested there players that were injured and the defense should play as usual allowing about 23 points and the offense scoring about 32 points
Everyone has the Saints as falling apart in the end again, but really the Saints have the momentum here. Sure the Cards won a great game last week but know they can not come to New Orleans with the game plan they had with Green Bay. The Cards know a healthy Saints defense will allow you to move the ball up and down the field and then shut down in the red zone and we all know what Drew Brees and the offense does after that.
GOOOOOOOOOOO SAINTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The benefits of having a bye week are so obvious, it’s really not worth much discussion. Andrew602’s numbers in this post pretty much tell the story. Over the past 7 years under the present playoff structure, the Super Bowl has been won by a team having a bye week 57% of the time. 43% of the time it has been won by a team not having a bye week. On surface, this appears to be the same results you would probably get flipping a coin 7 times.

However, the more telling statistic is that 14.3% of the teams having bye weeks over the past 7 years have won a Super Bowl (4 out of 28 teams). Only 5.4% of the playoff teams not having byes over the past seven years have won a Super Bowl (3 out of 56 teams). Simple math shows that over this period, teams with a bye week had more than a two and a half times better chance of winning the Super Bowl, all other factors being equal. This is certainly no guarantee that the Chargers, Colts, Saints or Vikings will win the Lombardi Trophy this year. But the odds would indicate that one of them winning it is more likely than the Cardinals, Cowboys, Jets or Ravens doing so.

The idea of resting or not resting starters is a separate issue. Rest starters to let them get healthier and avoid an injury that could cause a player to miss the playoffs? Or, keep the pedal to the metal and avoid the possibilty of losing momentum and rhythm? While it’s true the Colts lost twice after resting players, it’s also true the Patriots didn’t win the Super Bowl after having won 18 games in a row playing starters to get there. This year, the Saints and Colts fully committed to resting starters for the last game of the regular season. The Bengals and the Cardinals rested players to varying lesser degrees. The Bengals lost and the Cardinals won.

None of the other teams involved in first round playoff games rested starters. The Cowboys, Eagles, Ravens and Jets couldn’t because winning their last game was critical to either making the playoffs or playoff seeding. Three teams could have rested starters and chose not to – the Vikings, Packers and Patriots. The two teams of these three that have played thus far both lost in the first round. An injury to Welker in the Patriots final game of the season no doubt contributed to their playoff loss. I would guess if they had it to do all over again, the Patriots would probably opt for resting starters.

One of the reasons the NFL initiated the bye week during the regular season was due to the wear and tear and increased injuries that come with playing 16 games week after week. The other reason was of course the increased revenue that comes with having an extra week in the regular season, but thats another story. Regardless of the greed motivation aspect of the decision, teams definately look forward to their bye week. For obvious reasons, they prefer it to be toward the latter part of the season and feel they got the short straw when it falls on the fifth week of the season, as it did for the Saints this year.

Since the 16 game season came about, there has been a steady increase in the number of teams that elect to rest players when afforded the option to do so. As it’s more likely that the number of injuries will increase rather than decrease in the forseeable future, I think it’s safe to say this trend will continue.

the last regular season game? Does that count?

Personally, I don’t buy into the rest=rust argument. If that were true, you’d see more of a disparity in the stats following bye-weeks with more teams losing coming off a bye. Not only that, but look at the preseason. Even though everyone rests a lot of starters during that time, you would expect that the first games of the season would be typically low-scoring affairs which, at least for the Saints this year, they clearly were not.

It’s nice to have interaction with an opposing teams fans without things digressing to the “your team sucks!” bickering. You’ve got some intelligent, classy fans over here. The same is true for the great majority of you that have posted on CSC.

I can’t in good faith wish your team good luck tomorrow, but I will say that I’ll support the team that wins to go to the Super Bowl.

“Teams that have had the first round bye have a combined record of 17-11. "

“Teams that have the number one seed have a combined record of 17-2.”