With the NFL schedule coming out, the media will be flooded with analysis of each matchup’s “rest differential” for the 2025 season. Rest differential is the difference in the number of days in which the two teams have off prior to their gameday. 

A logical hypothesis would be that a team with more rest is more likely to win, especially in an extremely violent game like football. However, research produced in the summer of 2024 by league office personnel Mike Lopez and Tom Bliss seems to indicate that rest differentials do not significantly affect game outcomes... 

...anymore. 

The 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement: Significant Rest Advantages Eliminated 

The word “anymore” is doing a lot of work in the above statement. 

Prior to 2011, research indicates that there was a significant effect of rest; models indicated a swing of about +2.2 points in favor of the more rested team. For context, that would’ve been like benching a league average quarterback and putting Kyler Murray, who led the sixth ranked offense in terms of success rate, in 2024. 

So, what closed this massive advantage? 

In the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the league and players’ association decided to ensure players get four days off during the bye, which in effect decreased the amount of time that teams could practice. As a result, players spend time away from the field rather than spending extra time in practice in preparation for a game over a week away. 

The results indicate that the “advantage” was not actually coming from rest and recovery, but rather from more extensive preparation. 

In my opinion, this is a rare “win-win” in collective bargaining for the league (as an organization) and the players 

  • The league improved parity with this move by eliminating the competitive advantage. This could provide a more stimulating product for its media partners, whereas you could count on a team being virtually down a safety prior to the change. 
  • The players get more time with their friends and family during the season which, as a former player, I can tell you is a massive luxury. 

The only negatively affected parties are the coaches, who still “self-scout” during this period and lose the ability to prepare their team. However, when you consider that every team has a bye, it also ends up helping the teams when they are at a massive disadvantage in the rest differential column. 

The 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement: The “MiniBye” Advantage (if any) Eliminated 

The research indicates that there is non-significant evidence that a very slight advantage still existed after what is called the “MiniBye”. The MiniBye is when a team has between 9 to 11 days of rest and there was a two-day rest differential between the opponents. This usually occurred when a team who had played on Thursday Night Football played a team who had played on Sunday. 

The research hinted that there could be a very slight advantage (+0.48 points) in favor of the team with the MiniBye, though evidence was not strong enough to call it “significant”. 

However, this advantage was quickly treated the same way as the standard bye, as in 2020, the league and players agreed to guarantee at least three days off unless a team is playing on consecutive Thursdays. 

The 2025 Outlook: More International Games Could Prove Interesting 

While the league and players’ association have made moves to eliminate rest advantages, an expanding geographic profile for NFL games could pair travel and rest together to form another advantage. The NFL is beginning to expand where its games can be played. Games in 2025 will be played in Brazil, Ireland, England, Germany, and Spain. The Vikings, notably, will be playing back-to-back Sundays in Ireland and England. 

As the NFL continues to expand its footprint on the world, the sample size for these unique travel-rest pairings will increase, giving us a better indication of whether an advantage can be had by this type of scheduling. 

However, with the Collective Bargaining Agreement running until 2030, you can expect that within the next 5 to 6 years, those advantages will be neutralized.