Photo: NBC Sports Boston


Happy bye week everyone.

While it’s always tough for Patriots fans to sit around and watch the rest of the league play instead of firing up those tailgates or hosting those Sunday get-togethers, it’s clear the break comes at a perfect time for the team.

Damien Harris pulled up with what looked like a hamstring injury last Monday night and it’s nice that Mac gets a little mental break so late in the season. Can’t hurt to get some veterans and other guys that are banged up a rest in December too. In fact, this is the latest bye week in the Bill Belichick era since the magical year of…2001.

That’s right. This Week 14 bye is the latest one the Patriots have had in 20 years. That season, the Pats had a ridiculously late bye in Week 16 and we all know what happened during that magical run in the weeks following. That got us thinking though, what has the bye week history looked like under Coach Belichick?

We’ve got you covered…

MOST COMMON BYE WEEKS N THE BELICHICK ERA – Weeks 9 and 10

The Patriots have had a bye in Week 9 four times since the 2000 season. The first came in 2000, a year where the Pats finished 5-11. After that, the Pats didn’t have a bye in Week 9 until 2012, that season of course ended against Baltimore. The only other two times the Patriots have had a bye in Week 9 under Belichick was in 2016 and 2017, one of those years ended the right way while one of them did not.

Week 10 byes have been the most popular in the Belichick era. The Pats have had five occasions where the week off fell during Week 10. 2003 was the first year and then again in 2007 (we don’t need to revisit that). 2013, 2014 and 2019 were the other years New England had Week 10 off. The 2003 and 2014 seasons ended with titles, but 2013 also ended in Denver. The ending in 2019…never mind, lets move on.

LEAST COMMON BYE WEEKS IN THE BELICHICK ERA – Weeks 3, 4 and 5

The Patriots have had a bye week ridiculously early in the season five times under Belichick. Now, what classifies as “ridiculously early” is up to the individual making the point, but for the sake of this piece we’ll draw the line at Week 5. New England’s earliest bye came in 2004 when it fell in Week 3. That was arguably the best team of the Belichick era, so clearly it didn’t phase them.

In 2010 and last year the Pats’ bye came in Week 5. Belichick and his team have also gotten screwed by the NFL with bye weeks falling in Week 4 in 2008 (the Matt Cassel year) and 2015 (another AFC title game loss in Denver). With 04′ being the outlier, the early bye weeks ultimately haven’t helped the Patriots one bit, as you’d probably expect.

Below is a complete list of bye weeks for the Patriots in the Bill Belichick era. The one common theme in all of this is the later the bye, the better off New England has been. That’s obviously nothing ground breaking, but it does make this season’s bye week very intriguing given the team’s history in the last 22 years.

2000 – Week 9
2001 – Week 16
2002 – Week 7
2003 – Week 10
2004 – Week 3
2005 – Week 7
2006 – Week 6
2007 – Week 10
2008 – Week 4
2009 – Week 8
2010 – Week 5
2011 – Week7
2012 – Week 9
2013 – Week 10
2014 – Week 10
2015 – Week 4
2016 – Week 9
2017 – Week 9
2018 – Week 11
2019 – Week 10
2020 – Week 5
2021 – Week 14

So, will the second-latest bye week in the era of The Hoodie pay dividends this year? Time will tell, but for people that have been clinging to any 2001 comparisons they can get their hands on this year, the most significant one might be how late the bye week falls and whether or not it ends up aiding the Patriots in another unpredictable Super Bowl run.