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 2011 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 had six teams on a bye. As for this year, only Week 7 has six teams off, but byes do run from Week 4 to Week 11 (with just two teams on a bye in Week 4).

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 4, 8, 9 and 11 (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 7 for example has just LeSean McCoy in the Top 8-9 players, so unless you have one of the first three picks 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 7 first – six teams, including Philadelphia, Kansas City, Atlanta, San Diego, Denver and Miami – as the best chance to make this happen. The good news is that 25 different skill position players are available from these six 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 two of these teams were in the playoffs last year and both San Diego and Philadelphia have good offenses, which is always a good thing for fantasy production.

Table 3 lists the 25 skill position players and the suggested rounds in which they are selected:

Table 3: Bye Week 7 Players vs. Projected Draft Round

Based on that list above, it looks like it is possible to take a stud running back in Round 1 followed by Julio Jones or Ryan Mathews and then a WR in Round 3. Starting with a lineup of McCoy, Mathews and Roddy White allows for the addition of Demaryius Thomas or Dwayne Bowe in Round 4 followed by snagging Antonio Gates in Round 5, giving us starters at three positions. Rounds 6 and 7 tees up two quarterback possibilities (Matt Ryan, Philip Rivers) while Rounds 8 and 9 give plenty of depth options as well, including a solid TE2 in Brent Celek.

Other scenarios do exist for Weeks 5 and 6. 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 5:

Table 4: Bye Week 5 Players vs. Projected Draft Round

Based on that list above, it looks like it is possible to take a stud WR or RB in Round 1 and then come back in Round 2 with Doug Martin. This option gives good teams to choose from (Dallas, Detroit) and two younger offenses starting to build (Tampa Bay, Oakland). Round 5 is a void of Week 5 players, but things pick up for Rounds 6, 7 and 9 as you can secure seven Week 5 bye players before deciding if you want Felix Jones in Round 10.

The last group is the last real option to pull this off – Week 6. Again, only four teams are off this week (Chicago, New Orleans, Carolina and Jacksonville) but good offenses are definitely in the mix. Table 5 breaks these players down by each round:

Table 5: Bye Week 6 Players vs. Projected Draft Round

Problems start to emerge here with this strategy, however, after Round 3. With eight names in the first three rounds, unless players start to trickle down into Round 4 the pickings will be slim in Rounds 4-9. That might make you punt on this strategy, or just go part-way with bye week combinations.

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.

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