In the first three weeks of the season, I can't recall too many questions mentioning the words "bye weeks." Now it seems like 75 percent of the questions do, as if I had forgotten this important fact. Yes, this week the Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles are playing golf. We know this. The bottom line every week in fantasy is to play your best players. We all have to deal with the annoying bye weeks, but whenever I see a query like this, I think, So what? You still play your best players! You don't get extra sympathy if all your players are on bye.
I don't really manage my teams any differently in bye weeks. The player pool is obviously smaller, a fact I mention in my other Wednesday blog about the Week 4 rankings, but that's about it. Maybe you have to cut someone you don't want to just to fill an active roster slot. If your kicker is on bye, dump him and find another kicker. Instead of 32 teams in action, there are fewer. I don't like it. Imagine in baseball if you had to sit all your Yankees one week -- since football is a 17-week season you might have to sit all Yankees two weeks for a proper comparison! -- and fill in with multiple players. I feel wronged by the bye weeks. We don't have bye weeks here at ESPN!
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Eric Karabell
