Each team is scheduled to have one week during the course of the season where they do not play a game. That off week for each team -- whenever it occurs, is termed a bye week. Each team has one bye week between weeks 4 and 12. For example, the league tries to limit the number of times a team that played the week before has to face a team coming off its bye. The schedule makers also consider where a team's bye week fell in past seasons.

The NFL returned to the use of the bye week in 1990 so as to extend the 16-game regular season schedule to span 17 weeks to increase the number of viewable games for TV contracts.

NFL teams don't have to practice on Wednesdays during their bye weeks; rather than spend that day preparing for their next opponent, many of them use it as an extra day off to let their players relax before getting back to work the following Monday.

The number of NFL teams on bye any given week varies; the low is two teams on a given week and the high is six. The majority of bye weeks require four teams to sit out.

Fantasy football owners don't get bye weeks. Instead, as the SportingNews.com notes, "we have to deal with the fallout of the byes -- that valuable missed time of our draft picks and waiver-wire acquisitions. So, bye weeks become just another aspect we need to be aware of in creating our fantasy football draft strategies.

There are a variety of ways that fantasy football managers can leverage NFL bye weeks to their favor. Much depends on the individual manager. Some ignore byes, some stack to maximize available talent on those week. Others spreading them out. Some make an effort to put them off until later in the season (especially at the "onesie" positions, where you only start a single player -- like quarterback, tight end, kicker and defense).