We took every regular-season game since 1999 from the nflverse games file, which records each team's days of rest before every game, and focused on the 2012 to 2025 seasons, when the NFL put a Thursday game in every week from Week 2 to Week 15 so that every team would play one. Week 1 is left out, because nobody has played yet, and neutral-site games are counted separately. A bye is 13 or more days of rest, as in our look at NFL home-field advantage.
Thursday Night Football: home team record and scoring on a short week
In the 2012 to 2025 regular seasons, 222 Thursday games were played with both teams on four days of rest or fewer. Home teams went 126-96, 56.8 percent, and the games averaged 45.7 points, against 56.0 percent and 45.7 points on Sundays. Thursday games were no more lopsided either: 27 percent were decided by 17 points or more and 51 percent by one score, against 26 and 52 percent on Sundays.
The regular Thursday night game looks a little better for hosts, 108-71 (60.3 percent) in 179 games, but the difference with Sundays, about four points, is close to one standard error: chance alone moves samples this size by that much. Thursday games scored less than Sunday games in 9 of the 14 seasons and more in the other five.
| Game slot | Games | Home record | Home win % | Home margin | Points per game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday night, short week | 179 | 108-71 | 60.3% | +2.31 | 45.3 |
| Thanksgiving Day | 41 | 17-24 | 41.5% | −2.51 | 48.2 |
| All short-week Thursdays | 222 | 126-96 | 56.8% | +1.43 | 45.7 |
| Sunday, before 4 p.m. ET | 1,771 | 980-785-6 | 55.5% | +2.05 | 45.2 |
| Sunday, late afternoon | 837 | 470-366-1 | 56.2% | +2.48 | 46.5 |
| Sunday night | 228 | 133-93-2 | 58.8% | +3.58 | 47.2 |
| Monday night | 227 | 117-110 | 51.5% | +1.18 | 44.7 |
| Saturday | 76 | 40-36 | 52.6% | −0.08 | 45.5 |
| All games | 3,385 | 1879-1497-9 | 55.6% | +2.10 | 45.7 |
The slot that stands out is Thanksgiving Day, when hosts went 17-24, 41.5 percent, in 41 games. The Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys host every year and went 12-16 at home, and the night game hosts went 5-8. Monday night hosts, at 51.5 percent, also trail Sunday night hosts, at 58.8; none of these gaps is large next to the noise of a few hundred games.
Short rest vs normal rest: does an extra day matter?
Barely. Comparing each team's rest with its opponent's, teams with one or two more days of rest won 49.2 percent of the time and teams with three to six more won 49.4 percent, both within a fraction of a point of what their mix of home and road games predicts. The extra days come from a Thursday game the week before, an opponent's Monday game or a bye, and those teams are more often on the road: 709 road games against 570 at home.
| Rest edge | Team-games | Win % | Expected | At home | On the road |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Same rest | 4,212 | 50.0% | 50.0% | 55.7% | 44.3% |
| 1 or 2 more days | 472 | 49.2% | 49.3% | 56.0% | 43.8% |
| 3 to 6 more days | 496 | 49.4% | 49.2% | 55.2% | 45.1% |
| 7 or more days | 311 | 53.2% | 49.8% | 58.7% | 48.1% |
The two most common mismatches do not move the needle. Teams playing on six days of rest after a Monday night game, against a team on seven, won 51.8 percent of 370 games. Teams on 10 or 11 days after a Thursday game, the so-called mini-bye, won 49.3 percent of 337 against teams on seven. Only an edge of seven days or more, almost always a bye, clears the bar: 53.2 percent in 311 games, against 49.8 expected.
The NBA is different. There, the second night of a back-to-back costs teams real wins: they won 44.2 percent of those games from 2012-13 to 2025-26. Football's usual shortest turnaround is four days, not one.
NFL record after a bye week
From 2012 to 2025, teams off a bye went 198-173-1 against opponents that were not, 53.4 percent. At home they won 58.8 percent, against 55.9 percent for hosts in games without a bye; on the road, 48.5 percent against 44.1. That is three to four points of win rate. From 1999 to 2025, with twice the games, the gap is 3.5 points, about twice what chance alone would typically produce; its home side, 59.3 percent in 372 games, is the figure in our home-field study.
Some coaches turn the extra week into more. Among the 16 head coaches with at least 12 regular-season games coming out of a bye since 1999, all sites and opponents counted, these did best and worst:
- John Harbaugh: 15-3 with the Baltimore Ravens, the best rate.
- Andy Reid: 22-5, including 13-1 with the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999 to 2012 and 9-4 with the Kansas City Chiefs.
- Mike Tomlin: 15-4 with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
- Bill Belichick: 16-8 with the New England Patriots.
- Sean Payton and Mike McCarthy: 12-6 each.
- At the other end: Marvin Lewis went 5-10-1 with the Cincinnati Bengals, and Pete Carroll 7-9.
- All coaches: 450-397-4 after a bye, 53.1 percent, in 851 games from 1999 to 2025.
International games: London, Germany and the bye that follows
The NFL had played 62 regular-season games outside the United States before this season, the league's count and ours: 44 in London, six in Toronto, five in Mexico City, five in Germany (two each in Munich and Frankfurt, one in Berlin), two in Sao Paulo and one each in Dublin and Madrid. The first was in Mexico City on October 2, 2005, a 31-14 win for the Arizona Cardinals over the San Francisco 49ers; the first in London, in 2007, went to the New York Giants, 13-10 over the Miami Dolphins. Designated home teams went 28-33-1.
The bye after the trip used to be close to a rule and is not anymore. From 2014 to 2019, 38 of the 46 teams that played abroad had their bye the next week, every one of them in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. From 2022 to 2025 it was 19 of 44, 43 percent, with five games abroad a year from 2022 to 2024 and seven in 2025. There were no international games in 2020.
The bye does not show up in the next game. From 2005 to 2025, teams coming back from abroad went 36-39-1 after a bye and 27-21 when they played the next week, two samples too small to read much into.
Rest and the 2026 NFL schedule through Week 5
Through the Sunday games of Week 5, the four short-week Thursday games split 2-2 for hosts and averaged 53.0 points, led by the Buffalo Bills' 41-31 win over the Detroit Lions in Week 2; the Atlanta Falcons won 35-14 at the Green Bay Packers, the Cleveland Browns beat the Steelers 27-24 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won 24-16 at Dallas. Sunday games from Week 2 on averaged 44.8 points. In games with unequal rest, neutral sites aside, the team with more days off was 13-5.
- Byes: they began in Week 5, with Carolina and Kansas City off. On October 18, the Carolina Panthers won 25-14 at the Eagles and Reid's Chiefs beat the Los Angeles Chargers 22-6, the season's first games off a bye.
- International games: four of the record nine scheduled abroad had been played. The 49ers beat the Los Angeles Rams 27-7 in Melbourne, the Ravens beat the Cowboys 34-31 in Rio de Janeiro, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Washington Commanders 30-13 in London and the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Eagles 19-17 there, so designated home teams were 1-3.
- No bye after the trip: none of the eight teams that had traveled had its bye the following week, and Jacksonville stayed in London to host the Houston Texans on October 18, losing 34-31. Paris, Madrid, Munich and Mexico City were scheduled between October 25 and November 22.
- Next short week: on Thursday, October 15, the Seattle Seahawks lost 17-14 at the Denver Broncos.
The NFL schedule lists every game and its kickoff, and the Vertize NFL simulator plays out the rest of the season from the real standings.
NFL rest days: frequently asked questions
Do NFL teams play worse on Thursday Night Football? Not measurably. From 2012 to 2025, short-week Thursday games averaged 45.7 points, the same as Sundays, and were as close as Sunday games; home teams won 56.8 percent, against 56.0 on Sundays.
What is the NFL record after a bye week? Teams off a bye won 53.4 percent against opponents that were not from 2012 to 2025, about three to four points above what home and road alone would predict. Since 1999, all teams went 450-397-4 after a bye.
What is Andy Reid's record after a bye? 22-5 in the regular season, 13-1 with the Eagles and 9-4 with the Chiefs. Among coaches with at least 12 such games since 1999, only John Harbaugh, 15-3, has a better rate.
Do NFL teams get a bye after a London game? Often, not always. From 2014 to 2019, 38 of 46 teams that played abroad had their bye the next week; from 2022 to 2025, 19 of 44. None of the eight 2026 travelers through Week 5 had one.
How this was built: every regular-season game of the 1999 to 2025 seasons and of 2026 through the Sunday games of Week 5, from the nflverse games file, downloaded on October 12, 2026, with its home_rest and away_rest columns (days since each team's previous game). Week 1 is excluded from rest comparisons; neutral-site games, including the Buffalo Bills' Toronto games and the 2005 New Orleans Saints' relocated home games, are excluded from home records, as in our home-field study. A bye is 13 or more days of rest; a short week is four days or fewer for both teams. International venues for 2025 and 2026 and every 2026 score were checked against NFL.com; the Week 6 scores quoted for October 15 and 18 were checked against ESPN and the nflverse file of November 3. Coach records exclude the week after September 11, 2001, when every team had two weeks off.