Why the Jets don’t have a bye after London game vs. Vikings | Sporting News

A quick peruse of the Jets’ 2024 schedule revealed something interesting: New York doesn’t have a bye immediately after its international voyage to London to face the Vikings in Week 5.

Traditionally, teams opt to take their bye week after they return from an international game —mostly because of the jet lag associated with the time difference and long plane ride. The Jets decided not to go that route, though, and instead won’t have their week off until Week 12. This will also come after New York plays seven primetime games during the first 11 games of the season — the most in NFL history.

Head coach Robert Saleh explained that the decision to take a later bye week is all about maximizing rest time in the early portion of the season compared to the end of the season. Saleh noted that because the Jets have a Thursday night game before and after the London trip — which he dubbed “mini-byes” — that he’d rather save the week-long bye for the second half of the season.

“The decision not take the bye was the feeling that if we can get a Thursday game early, those act as mini-byes,” he told reporters during his press conference at the team’s organized team activities on Tuesday. “There’s so much data with regards to the London trip and so many teams have tried it so many different ways — we feel really comfortable about what we’re going to do.”

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Saleh added that the Jets have learned a lot from their 2021 trip to London and have a better understand of how other teams traveled during the season.

Why the Jets don’t have a bye after London game vs. Vikings

To put Saleh’s mentality into perspective, here’s how the Jets schedule breaks down, rest-wise, between Weeks 1 and 11:

The Jets will play three games in 10 days to open the year before a 10-day break between Weeks 3 and 4. New York will have eight days between Week 5 (the London game) and Week 6 (the Monday night game against the Bills). Finally, the Jets will have another 10 days of rest between Week 9 (the second Thursday night game) and their Week 10 match with the Cardinals.

Because Saleh asked for a later bye week, the Jets are tied for the eighth-most net rest time in the NFL this season, per Sharp Football Analytics. This is huge for a team chock-full of veterans and players coming off injury. Aaron Rodgers, Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses and Mike Williams are all coming off injury-plagued 2023 seasons and all will be key players for the Jets in 2024. The same goes for third-year offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker and starting safety Chuck Clark. Keeping them fresh is how New York will remain competitive and make a playoff push.

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Saleh further explained why the Thursday night games are helpful and why pushing the bye week as far down the schedule as possible is important.

“You come off the training camp and you’ve got that two weeks — so you’ve got a bye week to start before the season starts,” Saleh said. “A perfect world is you play eight or nine games, you get a bye week and you play eight or nine more. But with the Thursday game, it kind of acts as a miniature bye … But the biggest reason is just to give a refresh at the middle toward the end of the season, a refresh to hit your surge for hopefully what should be a playoff run.”

The Jets aren’t messing around in 2024, and Saleh is taking every possible angle to gain as many advantages as possible as the Jets attempt to break their 13-year playoff drought.

New York Jets schedule 2024

Here is Jets’ full 18-week schedule, including dates, times, and locations.

New York will play:

• Home: Bills, Dolphins, Patriots, Broncos, Texans, Colts, Rams, Seahawks
• Away: Bills, Dolphins, Patriots, Cardinals, Jaguars, Vikings, Steelers, 49ers, Titans