Fantasy Football Overview of the 2024 NFL Schedule

The NFL released its full schedule and the first thing I wanted to know was when teams weren’t playing.

If fantasy football is your thing, the rest weeks are essential.

Let’s set some rules for the bye week up front. I think it’s foolish to go into the draft with a heavy bias toward bye weeks. The future is unwritten and unknowable. The roster you draft today (or even in August or September) can and often will look radically different by the time bye weeks come into your life. Bye weeks can be a tiebreaker on draft day, but it’s generally a mistake to let it go any further than that.

Still, we have a little planning to do. So let’s first look at the eight weeks of byes for 2024, and then try to determine which teams have a harder or easier schedule to open the year (September) or to close the year (in Weeks 15-17, the fantasy playoffs).

Okay, so the byes go like this:

• Week 5: Lions, Chargers, Eagles, Titans

• Week 6: Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins, Vikings

• Week 7: Bears, Cowboys

• Week 9: Steelers, 49ers

• Week 10: Browns, Packers, Raiders, Seahawks

• Week 11: Cardinals, Panthers, Giants, Buccaneers

• Week 12: Falcons, Bills, Bengals, Jaguars, Saints, Jets

• Week 14: Ravens, Broncos, Texans, Colts, Patriots, Commanders

I’ll never fully understand why every NFL bye week isn’t a standard four-team bye, but you’ll notice (as usual) that some of these bye weeks aren’t like the others. Only two teams are in Weeks 7 and 9, while a whopping six teams are on vacation in Weeks 12 and 14.

I’ve been playing fantasy football for a while now (when I first started playing, Brett Favre was a new, somewhat unknown player). I’ve heard all sorts of bye week strategies. Some managers like to draft late bye weeks, procrastinate, and think their roster will change significantly before they ever have to deal with a draft shortage (or they can do some roster massaging later in the year, when decisions are made based on a better understanding of the player pool and the team’s needs). Some managers stack their byes on top of each other, thinking they can throw away one week but do great the next. Many managers draft with little or no regard for bye weeks, and I don’t think that’s unreasonable, in the right league. You know your context better than outsiders.

One thing I’m open to—and please understand that this is a low-end tiebreaker, nothing more—is trying to pick up a few players for the “skinny byes”; that is, players who are tied to teams that share a bye with only one other NFL club. The idea is that if you pick up those players, you won’t miss them as much when they’re free (30 NFL teams play that week) and they’ll be useful when the tougher byes kick in. But you know the NFL is a snow-globe league, and injuries and chaos can quickly take over. I would never pursue this idea aggressively, it’s just a way to break a tie after several more important factors have caused a stalemate.

The Bears and Cowboys share a skinny bye in Week 7. That doesn’t mean DJ Moore scores 13 touchdowns or Ezekiel Elliott rediscovers the fountain of youth in Dallas. It’s just a minor tiebreaker. The Steelers and Niners share a skinny bye in Week 9.

One of my primary fantasy goals is to get off to a good start, get some leverage. I like to play fantasy football with a microscope (focus on what’s in front of me) and not necessarily a telescope (focus on things far away from me).

Let’s make one thing clear: Right now, we’re looking at all of this through a telescope: September is almost four months away. We have no idea which teams will be injured before kickoff. But it’s fun to imagine who will be hot in September, so let’s take a look at the schedules as such.

I ran the calculation of which teams had the easiest and hardest schedules based on the sum of their opponents’ expected win totals (the team over/unders). This is a quick way to do it, and it doesn’t take into account weather, schedule, coaching, home/away dates, the perceived strength of a team’s offense vs. defense, etc. It just asks “How good are your September opponents collectively expected to be at this point?” (Props to Warren Sharp, who I believe came up with this new concept.)

With that in mind, here are the “easy” September schedules, if any are known yet

• Bengals: Patriots, at Chiefs, Commanders, at Panthers

• Jets: at Niners, at Titans, Patriots, Broncos

• Lions: Rams, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Seahawks

• Niners: Jets, at Vikings, at Rams, Patriots

• Chargers: Raiders, at Panthers, at Steelers, Chiefs

• Commanders: at Buccaneers, Giants, at Bengals, at Cardinals

• Seahawks: Broncos, at Patriots, Dolphins, at Lions

The Lions have three home games here, which is nice. Washington’s start is softened somewhat by three road games. After the Niners, the Jets target three inexperienced quarterbacks.

Using the same methodology, here are the “hard” September schedules

• Chiefs: Ravens, Bengals, at Falcons, at Chargers

• Ravens: at Chiefs, Raiders, at Cowboys, Bills

• Patriots: at Bengals. Seahawks at Jets, at Niners

• Jaguars: at Dolphins, Browns, at Bills, at Texans

• Falcons: Steelers, at Eagles, Chiefs, Saints

• Vikings: at Giants, Niners, Texans, at Packers

• Titans: at Bears, Jets, Packers, at Dolphins

• Rams: at Lions, at Cardinals, Niners, at Bears

The Patriots will likely be the big underdogs in their three road games. The Jaguars and Rams also travel three times in September. The Chiefs will at least enjoy home games against Baltimore and Cincinnati.

I’m not one to put too much stock in “easy” and “hard” fantasy playoff brackets. There’s so much that’s going to change before we even get to Week 17. Again, it’s a snow-globe league. But if looking ahead to the holidays is your thing, I’ve got some bracket rankings for you. This is all penciled in, gamers.

“Easy” Week 15-17 Schedules (Weather Doesn’t Matter)

• Chargers: Buccaneers, Broncos, at Patriots

• Colts: at Broncos, Titans, at Giants

• Cardinals: Patriots, at Panthers, at Rams

• Falcons: at Raiders, Giants, at Commanders

• Bengals: at Titans, Browns, Broncos

• Packers: Rams, Dolphins, Lions

• Cowboys: at Panthers, Buccaneers, at Eagles

• Saints: Commanders, at Packers, Raiders

• Jaguars: Jets, Raiders, Titans

The Falcons have the easiest schedule according to the over-under math (see below) and that will play a role in December. We’re all anxious to see what this offense will look like now that Arthur Smith is gone and a legitimate quarterback (Kirk Cousins) is taking over.

“Difficult” week 15-17 schedules (weather doesn’t matter)

• Steelers: at Eagles, at Ravens, Chiefs

• Texans: Dolphins, at Chiefs, Ravens

• Browns: Chiefs, at Bengals, Dolphins

• Lions: Bills, at Bears, at Niners

• Dolphins: at Texans, Niners, at Browns

• Giants: Ravens, at Falcons, Colts

• Niners: Rams, Dolphins, Lions

Barring some wild twists, the Steelers will be the underdogs in all of these games. Maybe some knuckleball weather can even things out.

You might want the whole enchilada, how a team’s schedule is rated cumulatively from Weeks 1-17, based on those team over-unders. There’s a lot of noise here, but I’ll give you the data if you want it (a low total equals a weak schedule; a high total equals a tougher schedule). For logical fantasy purposes, that cuts out Week 18. And this list is going to look comically lopsided once the season starts; that’s the NFL. Another nod to Warren Sharpwho first introduced this sharp concept to the public.

• Falcons 122

• Chargers 126

• Bears 127

• Fighter Jets 128

• Saints 128

• Bengal 130

• Foals 130

• Panthers 131

• Commanders 133

• Dolphins 133

• Cardinals 133

• Giants 134

• Broncos 134

• Eagles 134

• Leaders 134

• Pirates 135

• Seahawks 136

• Raiders 136

• Jaguars 136

• Packers 137

• Lions 138

• Nines 138

• Rams 138

• Raven 138

• Brown 139

• Cowboys139

• Titans 139

• Vikings 139

• Patriots 143

• Steelers 144

• Texans 144

• Accounts 144

Whatever that means. The future remains unwritten. Go draft like a champion today.