Bills contact NFL about fairness in scheduling
 

The Buffalo Bills want a level playing field when it comes to their schedule. The team's website points out that six of the team's opponents have had extra time to prepare for Bills games because they faced Buffalo after a bye week or a "Thursday Night Football" game.

That's the highest total in the league, with the Atlanta Falcons up next with four such games. The Bills have taken their complaints to the NFL.

"We certainly have talked to the league about this because it’s been disappointing where teams are coming off a bye or a long week," Bills President and CEO Russ Brandon told WGR. "This (Sunday) is the second time we're playing the Jets coming off a Thursday night game and now we're playing them coming off a bye.

"We lead the league in amount of games coming off of extra time or a bye week. It is a very, very tough job what they have in scheduling with all the different things that go into the formula and the stadium commitments and TV schedules, but it's certainly something that needs to be addressed."

It's hard to take this complaint too seriously. Teams that repeatedly play on "Monday Night Football" are also at a disadvantage the following week, but teams love that spotlight. This is a scheduling quirk that should be avoided, and it's unfortunate for this year's Bills. But it probably happens every now and then, and we don't remember another team raising the issue publicly.

There's also the question of whether any data supports the notion that extra time actually helps a team. Previous numbers have suggested that teams coming off a bye get a modest advantage at best. We've asked our research department for recent numbers on that, and will follow up here later.

I've always thought that there should only be two bye weeks. Half the league on one....half the league on the other.

Sounds like a reasonable complaint, though I doubt it changes anything.

Very reasonable complaint. The schedule makers have plenty of time to get shit all situated. I would bet they'll pay a bit more attention to this sort of thing going forward.

Only way I see them change it is maybe they take the Thursday night game out and do a double header on Sunday night or even play a Saturday night game.

Small Market Team.


They are ****ed.

Reasonable yes but with that team I don't think it mattered all that much.

I would rather see 8 (one for each division).

I love the Saturday night idea,in fact it would be ****ing awesome if KC could get a Saturday night play-off game.

Get rid of the Thursday night games, problem solved. Make double headers on Monday night.

Never happen.

The NFL has crossed the threshold of taking games OFF the schedule. From now on, they'll only be adding games.

this is still a newer(?) complaint. there is no precedent since Goddell and the shit league just starting adding Thursday night games for a FULL SEASON.

It wasn't a problem before because there wasnt Thursday night games starting in Week 1 to Week 16 like there is now. I think it's valid, and even worse cause the league wants to extend to TWO Thursday night games eventually? This occurrence will pop up a lot more then with scheduling.

I like this idea a lot. Each division has a bye week where all 4 teams take that week off.
Good idea.

Sounds familiar.

I'm cool with that. You could really shorten it down to 4 and give two divisions a week off.