After a bye week, the Ravens now have to prepare for a battle against the lowly Giants. It’s not like the Ravens should need help against these awful G-Men. Please don’t make me regret those words, Ravens, as today I’d like to focus on the late bye and why it helps more than hurts.
The first thing it does is that it gives players time to rest and get healthy.
We can see this clearly looking at yesterday’s injury report.
Okay, but every bye week does that. Why is it better if it’s late? Well, because of the quality of players coming back. Late in the season is when you want the bye because, as the season goes on, the potential for injuries increases – it’s just a probability game.
Let’s say that the Ravens had their bye around Week 7. That means that guys like Kyle Van Noy wouldn’t have had time to heal from a later-season injury.
Now, thanks to the late bye, players can come back more easily, and they’ll hopefully stay refreshed for a playoff run.
Think about a guy like Travis Jones, who has been fighting through an injury for over a month. The late bye is absolutely a huge help.
For a guy like Micheal Pierce, who was placed on IR, the late bye means he misses one fewer game than he would have if the bye was in October.
This could set them up nicely for this critical final stretch, and for what we hope is a long playoff run.
We tend to under appreciate how critical health is to a postseason run.
Getting reinforcements back at the right time. Also having the chance for a real break with a late bye. It could all be worth it when other teams are burnt out, physically spent or dealing with injuries. https://t.co/TIiuBa2Fvc
— Dev Panchwagh (@devpanchwagh) December 12, 2024
This is the ultimate value of the late bye: getting the team fully healthy for a long playoff run can only be done with the late bye. If your bye is later, you can give rest to the players who need it at a more reasonable time rather than earlier in the season. As only one team in each conference gets a playoff bye now, that’s even more crucial.
This only applies to teams that are going to the playoffs and expect to be in the hunt for the Super Bowl of course, but the Ravens are one of those teams (at least, that’s how they see themselves).
Now we just have to focus on beating the snot out of this lowly Giants team.
