The NFL will insist rest doesn’t give any form of measurable edge, but we know better.
Two of the biggest circled rest situations of the year proved massive edges.
One of those spots was the Pittsburgh Steelers playing at home after a bye week against the Cleveland Browns, playing on the road following a trip to London.
The Browns had to fly all the way to London and back home only to turn around and travel on a short trip to Pittsburgh.
The Steelers mauled them 23-9, outgaining the Browns 5.8 yards per play to 3.3 and easily covering the spread.
And the sharp money knew of this rest edge and hammered the line up from as low as Steelers -4 to as high as Steelers -6.5 before closing Steelers -6 at many spots.
The second-most circled rest spot of the year occurred in Week 3, where the Raiders, off of a later-than-usual Monday night game in Week 2 (10 p.m. ET start time), had to travel to the East Coast for a 1 p.m. ET Sunday kickoff on short rest to face the Commanders, who were on extra rest.
The Commanders played the prior Thursday night and thus had a four-day rest edge over the Raiders, who had only five days of rest between games.
The Commanders destroyed the Raiders, 41-24, leading 34-10 at the start of the fourth quarter.
The Commanders outgained the Raiders 7.4 yards per play to 5.7.
Washington easily covered the 3-point spread as a favorite, and this was despite the fact that Washington had to start backup QB Marcus Mariota.
I was interviewed by the Washington Post before that game to discuss rest edges.
As I was quoted in the article: “I’ve always believed the best teams and coaches can overcome bad ‘net rest’ — but that doesn’t make it fair.”
In that same article, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy wrote an email to the author and stated that rest advantage is not a factor in the league’s annual process of building the schedule.
It doesn’t take data to think that a team that has a multi-day rest advantage might have an edge on a team coming off a short week, for example.
But the data is there to support the notion.
The league is primarily about building a schedule that is good for TV and will overlook rest disadvantages to accomplish that goal.
But knowing which spots to circle is advantageous when betting on these games, and that appears unlikely to change anytime soon.