I'll share a little something about myself today. I'm not exactly a conventional thinker. That's sometimes good, often times bad, but there are enough "Aha" moments where you have a revelation that might be just enough to say that all the oddball ideas that pop in your head are worth it if you can have one of those thoughts that pays off. Whether this is one of those moments is yet to be decided, but I think there is some hope.

First off, I'll set the stage for the discussion. When the NFL announced their 2010 season, we all poured over it and looked for fantasy implications. The first thing that jumped off the page was the bye weeks, as usual. Most Keeper League and Dynasty League players love to check that first so as to see if they have bye week issues in store for the coming season. That's when it dawned on myself and several others that the NFL hates us at times - no really, they do. Trust me. Otherwise, how could they not understand that these weeks where six teams have a bye week just wreak havoc with our fantasy teams?

The six teams off in one week started the first year of NBC's flex scheduling (2006), as the NFL wanted to adjust the bye weeks so that they would be done and gone by Week 11 and also so as to not have a team with a week off before Week 4. The net result of that simple math was that instead of eight weeks with four teams on a bye, the NFL would have two weeks where six teams took time off. In 2009 it got even worse as in Weeks 7, 8 and 9 six teams had a bye week (and as a result only two were off in Week 10). I guess you can consider it to be good news that “only” Weeks 8 and 9 in 2010 have six teams on a bye.

All those byes made me think about the common question we have every year about bye weeks. Does it make good sense to collect players with the same bye weeks so as to have your team at full strength all the other games rather than patching your team for seven weeks during the year?

At first I didn't like the idea, since you are basically writing off a week on your schedule. Walking into a 13-game schedule at 0-1 already is not a great idea in my book. It gets even worse if you are in a league with fewer games or that punishes exceptionally bad performance weeks (such as the "All Play" format where you play everyone every week). All that aside, I thought I would at least see if I could come up with a recipe to do just the thing that people asked for - draft a team with all the same bye weeks.

I decided I would use three rules:

Focus on a complete starting lineup (1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR and a TE)

The lineup had to be complete by Round 10 (Pick 120)

No reach picks

By Rule #3 I mean that if you wanted to accomplish #1 and #2 but you had to draft a player in Round 5 that normally is still available in Rounds 6 or 7, that's off the table. We're not going to blow up our entire draft board just to get this together.

Next I decided to get all of the Top 120 picks based on recent ADP and sort them by Bye Weeks. Here is what I found:

Table 1: Top 120 Players By ADP, Sorted By Bye Weeks

Next I took a look at the positional breakdown for each Week's players.

Table 2: Bye Weeks vs. Positions

After reviewing Table 2 I decided to eliminate Weeks 5, 6 sand 9 (too few players). Remember, I'm not reaching for a TE2 or QB2 or a committee to make this happen. After those weeks were eliminated I noticed that it does seem possible to pull this off if everything goes correctly, but much will depend on what draft pick you have to start and also how things start to shake out in the draft. Week 4 for example has just Adrian Peterson in the Top 12, so unless you have the first or second pick in Round 1 I would not focus on this concept.

I wanted to see if I could choose a week and mock out a reasonable attempt at this. I chose Week 10 first – Green Bay, San Diego, New Orleans and Oakland – as the best chance to make this happen. The good news is that 18 different skill position players are available from these four teams, and also that they appear to be spread around the draft board enough that, given a little luck, this might be possible. Even better is the fact that three of these teams were in the playoffs last year and have good offenses, which is always a good thing for fantasy production.

Table 3 lists the 18 skill position players and the suggested rounds in which they are selected:

Table 3: Bye Week 10 Players vs. Projected Draft Round

Based on that list above, it looks like it is possible to take a stud quarterback in Round 1 followed by Greg Jennings and then a RB or WR in Round 3. Starting with a lineup of Aaron Rodgers, Jennings and Pierre Thomas allows for Antonio Gates to be snagged in Round 4, giving us starters at every position. Adding RBs or WRs (or one of each) in Rounds 6 and 7 and then taking Michael Bush in Round 9 finishes a roster with about seven out of ten picks all off in Week 10.

Other scenarios do exist for Weeks 7 and 8. While some of these weeks appear weaker (sic) due to the teams involved, a good roster can be built using this bye week collection strategy. Table 4 gives us a look at Week 7:

Table 4: Bye Week 7 Players vs. Projected Draft Round

Based on that list above, it looks like it is possible to take a stud WR in Round 1 and then come back in Round 2 with another WR or Peyton Manning. This option works well with a later first round pick (10-12) because if you can get both Andre Johnson and Reggie Wayne with the first two picks then this is certainly an option. The one issue is that your starting backs are weak given the teams you have to choose from (Jets, Colts, Texans and Lions) in the first five rounds – only Shonn Greene, Joseph Addai and Jahvid Best are possibilities. If you are okay with Addai as your top back in Round 4 and want to start WR / WR / TE with Dallas Clark then this might be an option for your team.

The last group is the deepest of them all – Week 8. This is one of the two weeks with six teams off, so that affords us many more options. Table 5 breaks these players down by each round:

Table 5: Bye Week 8 Players vs. Projected Draft Round

With our group of Week 8 players we have an issue in Round 1 with only Ray Rice available, but if he is our pick and we have the third or fourth spot in the draft than this can still work. DeSean Jackson should make it back in Round 2 to Pick 21 and then it is “best player available” in Round 3 as Steve Smith from the Giants would be a reach. Rounds 4 (2 players), 5 (3 players) and 6 (5 players) affords us 10 players to select from, making a scenario of Matt Forte, Hakeem Nicks and Tony Gonzalez quite possible. Selecting Eli Manning, Devin Hester and Chester Taylor with the next three choices gives the “Take Week 8 Off” team a solid lineup:

QB – Eli Manning

RB – Ray Rice, Matt Forte, Chester Taylor

WR – DeSean Jackson, Hakeem Nicks, Devin Hester

TE – Tony Gonzalez

Plus a RB or WR taken in Round 3.

There are a number of ways to try this out and make it a successful draft, but remember my earlier warnings about planning for a loss in your fantasy season. Good luck.

As always, questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.