Updated Sep 7, 2026 · Week 1 board.
The 2026 bye-week table, by week
Six-team weeks are the ones to plan around; single and two-team weeks barely register. Byes run from Week 5 through Week 14 this season, and Week 12 has none at all.
| Week | Teams on bye |
|---|---|
| 5 | Panthers, Chiefs |
| 6 | Bengals, Lions, Dolphins, Vikings |
| 7 | Bills, Jaguars, Chargers, Commanders |
| 8 | Texans, Saints, Giants, 49ers |
| 9 | Steelers, Titans |
| 10 | Bears, Broncos, Eagles, Buccaneers |
| 11 | Falcons, Browns, Packers, Rams, Patriots, Seahawks |
| 12 | No byes this week |
| 13 | Ravens, Colts, Raiders, Jets |
| 14 | Cardinals, Cowboys |
A few of the studs everyone drafts early sit in the crowded weeks. Bijan Robinson and Puka Nacua both land in Week 11, the single most crowded week on the calendar. Ja'Marr Chase, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Justin Jefferson all land in Week 6. If your early picks cluster like that, the fix is not skipping the player; it is planning the bench around that specific week. Our Week 1 picks board tracks the same players once the games start counting.
Why Week 11 is the one to actually plan for
Six teams off in one week beats every other week on the calendar; the next-crowded weeks only have four. Week 11 also sits close enough to a fantasy playoff push that a thin bench there costs more than the same gap would in October. Week 12, by contrast, has zero teams on bye. If your league schedules a flex trade deadline or a waiver priority reset, doing it right before Week 11 rather than Week 12 is the one calendar-based edge in this whole table.
Most leagues start their playoff bracket somewhere around Week 15 or Week 16, so Week 11 arrives while rosters are still jockeying for seeding, not after it is decided. A missed start there can cost a game you actually needed. Weeks 6, 7, 8, 10, and 13 carry four teams each; Weeks 5, 9, and 14 carry only two. All of those are ordinary by comparison: one flex-quality bench piece covers any single one of them without much planning at all.
Do not downgrade a stud for his bye
Our Week 1 board puts a real number on what a bench-level replacement actually costs you. The RB12 on our board, the last back most redraft leagues start weekly, projects at 15.74 points. The RB24, a typical waiver-tier option, projects at 9.96, a gap of 5.78 points in a single week. At receiver the gap is similar: WR12 projects at 16.18, WR24 at 10.16, a 6.02-point drop. Passing on a top player over a bye-week conflict trades a real, large weekly number for a scheduling convenience.
The players worth this argument are the ones taken in the first few rounds. Robinson and Nacua both carry legitimate RB1 and WR1 upside; benching either on draft day to dodge one Week 11 lineup decision gives up far more than it saves. Our hero-RB draft plan covers the same price-versus-upside math for the running back tier specifically.
Build the bench to answer one week, not every week
Once the studs are locked in, map their specific bye weeks and build one or two bench spots that cover those exact weeks, not a mirror roster at every position. Drafting a second quarterback, a second tight end, and a deep bench back before the season even starts uses picks that could have gone to actual difference-makers.
A good test on draft day: if a bench pick only helps during one specific week on the table above, and offers nothing the other seventeen weeks, it is a worse pick than almost anything else still on the board. Save that specific-week problem for the waiver wire once the season is actually running and real snap counts exist to draft from.
Waivers exist for a reason. A flexible bench piece who can start in more than one week beats three specialists who can only start in the week their namesake is off. Spend the last few picks on upside that can play regardless of the calendar, then lean on our waiver timing and FAAB guide (FAAB is your free-agent acquisition budget) during Weeks 5 through 14 to patch the specific gap when it actually arrives.
The Receipts Drawer
Week 11 is the crowded one, six teams including two studs almost every league drafted early. Week 12 is clean. Every other week carries two to four teams, well inside what a single flexible bench spot can handle without much planning. The number that should actually drive your draft-day choices is the RB12-to-RB24 gap, 5.78 points, and the WR12-to-WR24 gap, 6.02 points: that is the real cost of downgrading a stud, and it is bigger than any single bye week.
Refresh this table again if your league's schedule moves; a flex or bye week rule can change late in August in some formats. Check our Week 1 rankings board for the latest player numbers before you finalize a bench plan.
