NFL Bye Weeks Schedules (2025) - Which Teams Are On Bye?

Below you will find the 2025 NFL bye weeks schedule. See which NFL teams are on bye for every week of the NFL season:

2025 NFL Team Schedules and Bye Weeks

The 2025 NFL schedule features bye weeks for all 32 NFL teams. Bye weeks begin in Week 5 and continue through Week 14. However, there are no teams on a bye in Week 13.

Despite the NFL moving to a 17-game regular season and considering a jump to 18 games, each team gets just one week of rest and extra preparation.

Week 6, Week 7, and Week 11 all feature just two teams on a bye.

Week 5, Week 9, Week 10, Week 12, and Week 14 feature four teams on a bye

Week 8 features a whopping six teams on a bye, which is sometimes referred to as "byemageddon" by fantasy gamers.

NFL Bye Week Strategies and Implications

Fantasy managers should consider bye weeks, even if they decide to disregard them altogether. There are four main strategies when factoring bye weeks in fantasy football.

Avoiding Overlapping Bye Weeks At All Costs:

Method: Heavily consider 2025 NFL bye weeks when making any selection at any point in the draft, avoiding taking more than two players with the same bye.

Pros: Never feel the significant impact of bye weeks, limiting your fantasy team's availability.

Cons: Reaching on potential busts or fading high-upside players due to their team's bye week.

Drafting Depth Pieces with Different Bye Weeks

Method: After drafting a starting lineup, draft and select players who do not share bye weeks with core pieces of the fantasy team

Pros: Always have players ready to enter the starting lineups when key starters are out

Cons: Cuts pool of high-upside bench players down to only those without overlapping bye weeks

Stacking NFL Bye Weeks

Method: Leaning heavily into a roster full of players with the same bye week(s).

Pros: Only feel a significant impact of byes one or two times throughout the season

Cons: All but guarantees a loss for your fantasy team in the week(s) heavily affected by bye weeks

Ignoring Bye Weeks

Method: Always draft "best player available," regardless of bye week schedule.

Pros: Chance to have the best roster in your league

Cons: Leaves fantasy managers susceptible to bye week impacts

Bye Week Strategies In Action: Stacking vs. Avoiding

Based on the 2025 NFL bye week schedule, Week 8 sets up to be the most challenging for fantasy managers. The Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Rams, Las Vegas Raiders, Seattle Seahawks, and Arizona Cardinals are all out of action.

While it might sound like a good idea to limit your exposure to those teams, that could leave you fading key studs. You could reasonably acquire a stacked team consisting of Jahmyr Gibbs, Brian Thomas Jr., Davante Adams, Cooper Kupp, and James Conner. Is it worth missing out on value just because that team would be ravaged by the Week 8 bye? To some fantasy managers, that answer is yes.

On the flip side, fantasy managers who lean into picking several players who have a Week 8 bye could have one of the strongest teams in the league, and a potential Week 8 loss would not be the end of their title run.

Fantasy managers who prefer to stay competitive every week, no matter what, might choose to spread out bye weeks, while others will purposely stack byes or ignore them altogether.

Spreading Out Bye Weeks

Fantasy managers who opt to optimize their bench with players who do not share bye weeks with their team's starters will avoid feeling helpless when the bigger bye weeks come into play.

This strategy might involve taking real-life backup running backs with different bye weeks than their starting running backs, and hoping the bench RB has a fantasy-relevant role by the time the key week arrives

Since you can reasonably acquire two fantasy-relevant quarterbacks in single-QB leagues, it's important not to take two QBs with the same bye, especially in Best Ball leagues.

Bye-week management is especially important in Best Ball leagues that do not allow managers to administer trades or make roster moves after the draft. Be sure not to overlap bye weeks too much in these kinds of formats, as this can lead to zeroes in the score column and derail your hopes of taking home a championship.

Even if you do not heavily consider bye weeks in regular formats, you MUST consider them during your best ball drafts. Having two or three players at the same position who share byes during the same part of the NFL season is a sure-fire way to take losses in these setups.

2025 NFL Bye Weeks – Alphabetical Order

• Arizona Cardinals — Week 8
• Atlanta Falcons — Week 5
• Baltimore Ravens — Week 7
• Buffalo Bills — Week 7
• Carolina Panthers — Week 14
• Chicago Bears — Week 5
• Cincinnati Bengals — Week 10
• Cleveland Browns — Week 9
• Dallas Cowboys — Week 10
• Denver Broncos — Week 12
• Detroit Lions — Week 8
• Green Bay Packers — Week 5
• Houston Texans — Week 6
• Indianapolis Colts — Week 11
• Jacksonville Jaguars — Week 8
• Kansas City Chiefs — Week 10
• Las Vegas Raiders — Week 8
• Los Angeles Chargers — Week 12
• Los Angeles Rams — Week 8
• Miami Dolphins — Week 12
• Minnesota Vikings — Week 6
• New England Patriots — Week 14
• New Orleans Saints — Week 11
• New York Giants — Week 14
• New York Jets — Week 9
• Philadelphia Eagles — Week 9
• Pittsburgh Steelers — Week 5
• San Francisco 49ers — Week 14
• Seattle Seahawks — Week 8
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Week 9
• Tennessee Titans — Week 10
• Washington Commanders — Week 12