Guides · NFL Spread Dial
Do NFL Teams Cover Coming Off a Bye Week?
Teams off a bye covered 160-158-8 across 326 NFL games from 2015 to 2025. What the closing line already priced in, and what extra rest does not show.
Informational only. This guide describes public game data; it is not betting advice, and no wagering is offered or arranged here.
A team coming off a bye has had at least 13 days of rest, against the usual week. Across the 2015–2025 NFL seasons, the games where a team off a bye faced an opponent on normal rest finished 160-158-8 against the closing spread, a 50.3% cover rate, according to nflverse's schedule file. The extra rest did not show up as an edge against the line.
What the bye group looks like
The group here is narrow on purpose: one team with 13 or more days of rest, the other on a normal week. Two bye teams meeting each other are not in it.
| Measure (2015–2025, regular season and playoffs) | Teams off a bye |
|---|---|
| Games | 326 |
| Record against the spread (W-L-P) | 160-158-8 |
| Cover rate, pushes left out | 50.3% |
| Straight-up win rate | 56.9% |
| Average closing line in the rested team's favor | 1.54 points |
| Average margin for the rested team | 1.51 points |
Source: nflverse games.csv (CC-BY 4.0), games with a closing line. Lines are the closing spread recorded in that file.
The line already leaned their way
The rested team won 56.9% of these games outright, so rest is not meaningless on the field. But the closing line was already 1.54 points in the rested team's favor on average, and the average margin was 1.51 points. The two are about three hundredths of a point apart. A line that has already priced the rest leaves nothing for the cover rate to find, and 160-158-8 is what that looks like.
For scale, the same file shows home teams across all 2015–2025 games with an average closing line of 1.9 points and an average margin of 1.92. The line was close to the result there as well.
How much a 160-158 record says
It says very little. The bye group has 326 games over eleven seasons, and the gap between covers and non-covers is two games.Eight of the games pushed, landing exactly on the number, and they count for neither side. See What a Push Is and How Often NFL Games Land on the Line.
The break-even reference for a spread priced at -110 is 52.38%. A 50.3% cover rate is below it, and this record is a description of closed seasons, not a record of any model or any wager.
Where rest shows up in the Spread Dial
The NFL Spread Dial carries rest as one of its factors. Its rest edge is the home team's days of rest minus the away team's, taken from the schedule file, with a blank counted as 7 days. A team off a bye is the case that factor is built to register, and you can turn the dials to weight it your way. The headline record on that page is out-of-sample, fitted on earlier seasons only. The in-sample back-test under the dials is not.
What this cannot tell you
This does not say a rested team will cover or fail to cover any coming game. It does not separate good bye teams from poor ones, home from road, or early-season byes from late. It shows only that, across these 326 closed games, the closing line and the result were close together on average. Nothing here is a reason to take either side.
Data: nflverse (CC-BY 4.0), NFL seasons 2015–2025. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL or any team. Written by Eric, OddsDial founder.
Last reviewed: November 2026. Informational only, not betting advice.
Sources
Game data from nflverse (CC-BY 4.0). Every figure is dated to the seasons it covers. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL or any team.