The Philadelphia Eagles are one of four teams that are enjoying a bye week in Week 9. The off week comes essentially right in the middle of the 18-week regular season which certainly can have benefits opposed to having the bye week in the first wave starting in Week 5.
Regardless of when the Eagles have had their bye weeks, Nick Sirianni and his staff have mastered utilizing the extra time to address any lingering issues, get players healthy and most importantly, win.
Since the start of the Sirianni era in 2021, the Eagles are a perfect 4-0 in games right after their bye week, outscoring opponents 103-63 in those four contests. Three of those four wins came at Lincoln Financial Field with the lone road victory being a 21-17 triumph at Kansas City on Monday Night Football in 2023.
Philadelphia will look to improve that mark to 5-0 with a tough road battle when they visit the Green Bay Packers (5-1-1) in Week 10. Green Bay has allowed the sixth-fewest yards per game at 289.4 and will be a challenging test for the Eagles. However, the offense has seen an increase in production coming out of bye weeks under Sirianni.
The Eagles average 382.5 yards per game in the games directly following their bye, including a 519 yard performance against Washington in 2021 and putting up 401 yards against Pittsburgh in 2022. The 382.5 yards per game average surpasses the current average of 304.4 yards of offense per game through the first eight games this season.
The bye week can come in many different shapes and sizes and at different times of the season. However, for Sirianni, he has had a consistent viewpoint on the week of rest and has emphasized that with his messaging to his coaching staff.
“I think it’s so important that we are completely locked in and focused on finding ways to get better,” Sirianni said. “Identifying issues, identifying strengths, and this is a really important week. We’ve benefited from this week in the past, whether that be going into playoffs or whether it’s in the regular season.”
Sirianni also believes that the bye week can be a tool used to position the team well moving forward.
“This bye week sets you up for some things for the rest of the season.”
The bye week certainly did set up the team last season. After entering the Week 5 bye at 2-2 with questions surrounding the team’s performance, tweaks were made and the Eagles rattled off 10 straight wins after the break and won 16 of the final 17 games of the season, including the three playoff games and Super Bowl.
That was not the first time the Eagles put together an impressive stretch after their bye week. In 2022, after starting 6-0, they went 8-3 over the final 11 games of the regular season, finishing with a 14-3 record, making the Super Bowl. In 2021, they entered the Week 14 bye at 6-7 and won three of the four remaining games to earn a Wild Card spot.
The only season the Eagles have not stacked up more wins than losses after a bye week was during the 2023 collapse where they were 8-1 through the first nine weeks of the season, but closed out the year 3-5 despite winning the first two games after the Week 10 bye.
Overall, in the remaining games after the team’s bye week, Sirianni has led the Eagles to an impressive 26-10 record, good for a 72% winning percentage.
“The bye week process, we just continue to evolve it,” Sirianni said. “But I think that to say, ‘Hey, here’s what I’ve learned in my past four years here,’ it really goes back, ‘What have I learned in my time in the NFL in these bye weeks?”
“I think human nature could be, ‘Hey, we don’t have a game this week,’ and have a tendency to relax. That’s just not the way we think and that’s just not the way we’re about to go about our business. This week will be about finding ways to get better, identifying issues that we know we have, identifying strengths that we know we have, and tendencies, and looking for ways to improve on those things.”
