How an NFL team’s rest impacts handicapping:
Those of you who have been following me for a while on VSiN know that I am a huge proponent of different rest and scheduling scenarios in daily sports like the NHL and NBA. In fact, before each season, I publish an article for each sport detailing the various systems I use in my handicapping routine and all the games that qualify for those systems that season. It is usually a big hit with readers. Well, I am not sure if you’ve noticed, but rest advantages seem to be a far bigger deal in the NFL lately than I’ve ever seen. As a result, through nine weeks of play so far this season, teams coming off byes and having rest edges are 13-1 SU and 10-4 ATS. Naturally, seeing that stat piqued my curiosity to look at the whole angle of rest and scheduling more closely. I found some interesting numbers and systems that we will be adding to the weekly Analytics Report starting this week.
I went back a decade to break down the data, and in some instances, I found better long-running angles, and in others, recent data showed definitive trends.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that I found was that the deeper you get into a season, the less important being more rested has been. Here is the breakdown:
Since 2016:
More rested teams in September/October games: 225-189 ATS (54.3%)
More rested teams in November & later games: 349-363 ATS (49%)
This is unique in that most bettors would think it would be the opposite, with rest being more important later in the season when fatigue should be more of a factor. Perhaps oddsmakers are pricing the rest edge in a lot. That said, neither number is strong enough for me to form a conclusion I’d add as a system.
Does coming off a win or loss affect the rest numbers? Yes, it certainly does, as it seems that teams coming off a win fare much better with the extra rest than those coming off a loss:
Again, since 2016:
More rested teams in games coming off wins: 327-284 ATS (53.5%)
More rested teams in games coming off wins: 242-265 ATS (47.7%)
It would seem that a team sitting on a loss longer than usual isn’t beneficial to their mindset. At the same time, those off a win are buoyed by the extra rest and extra days of confidence building.
So far, I’ve only shown you long-running data that goes back over a decade. However, it is the recency that we are all experiencing now in terms of more rest success that led me to do this piece entirely. It seems something changed around Christmas of 2024. In fact, I’ll add this first system to the Analytics Report to remind you how beneficial extra rest has been lately and to keep you apprised of the teams playing in that situation each week going forward. First, we have the overall system, and then some subsystems that have grown from that:
Since Christmas 2024, NFL teams playing with more rest than their opponent in a given game have gone an impressive 103-73 SU and 102-73-1 ATS (58.3%).
Obviously, anything that hits at that rate in the NFL at this large of a sample size without anything else considered warrants our attention. However, when we break things down even further by home/road, line ranges, and type of opponent, we come up with some even better numbers. Take a look…
Home teams benefit a touch more from having additional rest in the NFL, as they are 53-29 SU and 48-33 ATS (59.3%) dating back to Christmas 2024.
This makes some obvious sense in that players get to spend more time in their homes with the additional time to prep for their upcoming opponent. This provides for both a mental and physical edge. Furthermore…
Home teams playing as small favorites or underdogs (-3 to +10) have been tremendously competitive when playing with extra rest than their opponent in the NFL since Christmas 2024, going 22-18 SU and 29-11 ATS (72.5%). Additionally, these games have gone 26-14 Over the total, as the home team has averaged 26.8 PPG and has only been held below 20 points in 14 games.
The 26.8 PPG is an impressive number for a home team that isn’t laying a lot of points. That extra rest is clearly helping develop a potent game plan.
The type of opponent is also motivating for teams playing with extra rest, as extra-rested teams may have more time to focus on the playoff standings and the added stakes attached to certain games:
NFL teams playing with more rest than their same-conference opponent (including divisional games) have been quite successful since Christmas 2024, going 75-52 SU and 78-49 ATS (61.4%).
The rest differential also comes into play in some systems. For instance, whether the reason was playing on a Thursday or their opponents just played on Monday should be taken into account by these last few new systems:
Winning midweek games (Wed/Thu) has been a big momentum builder for teams, as NFL teams playing with extra rest and coming off wins in those games have gone 71-38 SU and 66-41 ATS (61.7%) since January 2021.
This was in play for Green Bay’s 45-27 rout of New England on Sunday, but will not be this week for the Jaguars, who won this past Thursday night at Baltimore. The reason…they will be visiting the Titans, fresh off their bye week, on Sunday. Digging deeper on the system above and adding a line quailifier.
Winning midweek games (Wed/Thu) has been a big momentum builder for teams, as NFL teams playing as favorites with extra rest and coming off wins in those games have gone 59-15 SU and 48-26 ATS (64.9%) since January 2021.
Looking closer at Monday night games, teams losing their have a hard time getting momentum going during short weeks:
NFL teams playing with more rest than their opponent who comes off a Monday night loss have been fairly successful, going 77-68 SU and 79-62 ATS (56%) since September 2022.
Finally, adding extra rest to winning streaks has been quite beneficial too:
NFL teams playing with more rest than their opponent and riding a 2-game winning streak have gone 94-46 SU and 84-55-1 ATS (60.4%) since January 2022.
These are all pretty successful angles with decent sample sizes, based on logic I find fundamentally sound. That is typically my requirement, and thus I have no problem adding them to our weekly analysis. Hopefully this helps you better gauge the impact NFL schedules can have on teams, because the league is trending toward more unique opportunities, not fewer, and schedule differences typically become more prominent later in the season as holiday and Saturday games are added to the mix.
