NFL Betting Strategy: Finding an Edge in Rest Advantage

The NFL season is a grueling 17-game gauntlet. The day-by-day demands of the schedule are taxing both mentally and physically. Bye weeks come as an opportunity to rest and recover. When coming off of a bye, playing a team that just competed the following week creates a rest advantage. How can we as bettors target these rest advantages to find an edge betting NFL spreads?

Over the last 10 seasons, teams with a bye week rest advantage win straight up at an above .500 clip, including a 135-130-5 record ATS. Though you won more times than you lost by betting on these teams blindly, you would have finished with a -2.7% return on investment with a standard -110 price. The sportsbooks are wise to the advantages these rested teams have, so it can be difficult to find an edge. Focusing on a couple of trends over the last decade, there are some opportunities for bettors to profit. Let's take a look at two of these trends and find some games on the 2022 schedule to target for rest advantage.

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Early Bye Week Road Underdogs

There has been a lot of data over the last few years suggesting that the effect of home-field advantage in the NFL is diminishing, and books are behind in properly pricing it. Nowhere is this more apparent than when we look at road underdogs with a rest advantage. Since 2002, these teams are covering the spread at a 56.7% rate. That trend alone exposes a slight edge, but when we focus on these games occurring week 10 or earlier, week 9 or earlier bye, we find teams covering with a 37-18 record. That 67.3% cover rate over the last 10 years would yield a 28.4% return on investment. It's important to remember that trends don't guarantee success going forward, but there is an additional reason to believe this trend continues.