Steve Brownlee

Being in the middle of the bye “season” in the NFL, I started thinking about how all the teams’ off weeks are so spread out.

Doesn’t seem fair if you get one early and your closest competition is just now getting a chance to take theirs.

This season, the byes are spread out between Weeks 5 and 14, with a couple of weeks — including next weekend following Thanksgiving — not having any.

If all the competing teams have their bye around the same time, then it wouldn’t seem too unfair to any one particular team. But once you start looking outside of a division, there’s just too many permutations of who you might be competing against to be able to predict that before the season begins, when schedules are made.

So I propose a solution of bunching these byes closer together, centering them around midseason.

I figure the NFL would like to not have to compete with the World Series, so that late October time (this year the Series was scheduled Oct. 25-30) would be a good time to start them.

That would’ve been Week 8 this fall. And I can see why you’d want to have every team play right after Thanksgiving with people’s butts parked at home or at stadiums to see games.

That’s Week 13, but with Thanksgiving being as late as it can possibly be (Nov. 28), in some years that might be Week 12.

So you’d want to schedule them, say, in Weeks 8-12 this year, and maybe Weeks 7-11 in years with an earlier Thanksgiving.

Either way, that’s still five weeks to spread them around. Dividing 32 by 5, that’s comes to 6.4, meaning you can have either six or eight teams off each of those weeks.

This weekend, there’s six teams off, and while it’s a slightly lighter schedule, it’s not like it’s hard to find games. There’s still Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night games, leaving seven games at 1 p.m. Sunday and three more at 4 p.m. Sunday.

It could be similar to that for five consecutive midseason weeks, with byes all taken before Thanksgiving.

Of course, I’ve heard that the players union really wants a second bye week worked into the schedule if players agree to expanding the schedule by another game to 18. Then all these bets are off.

Kind of like a lot of my picks you see here in this space.

So let’s look at them:

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Today, 8:15 p.m.

Pittsburgh at Cleveland — Normally, I’d consider this a trap game as the Steelers are coming off a big win against division rival Baltimore. But this is another bitter AFC North rival, and one Pittsburgh likes kicking the butt of. Steelers, 30-20.

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Sunday, 1 p.m.

Kansas City at Carolina — Oops, this should be the anti-trap game. Buffalo made KC mad, ending the Chiefs’ perfect season that seemed rather brittle with all the close wins they’d had. This matchup seems like the perfect setup for a Lions-Jaguars-style blowout, just KC doesn’t quite have the firepower it used to. Chiefs, 34-7.

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Minnesota at Chicago — Teams can go either way with a bitter loss like the Bears suffered at home vs. the Packers last Sunday on the final-play blocked field goal. With Matt Eberflus at the helm, I’ll pick “the other way.” Vikings, 29-19.

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Tennessee at Houston — Houston should be concerned despite its easy Monday night win at Dallas as it showed so much promise before running into some quality opposition recently. Texans, 26-17.

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Detroit at Indianapolis — This one could get worrisome, mostly because can you count on the Lions’ offense to be perfect like it was last Sunday? Maybe not, but hey, close enough. Lions, 37-30.

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New England at Miami — I’m not so sure Miami has improved that much with Tua Tagovailoa back at quarterback. But the Pats seems like a good opponent to make us all think that. Dolphins, 33-24.

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Tampa Bay at New York Giants — The Buccaneers show grit and determination — making them good enough to lose in overtime to good teams. But since the Giants wouldn’t be considered good by any stretch, here’s where Tampa gets a payoff for all that grit, let alone the determination. Buccaneers, 24-19.

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Dallas at Washington — After all these years of getting beat down by their division rival, don’t you think Washington wants a little payback? This is the time to get it. Commanders, 40-22.

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Sunday, 4 p.m.

Denver at Las Vegas — I’m not feeling good about the Raiders, and again with this being a division rival, Denver isn’t going to take it easy. Broncos, 29-17.

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San Francisco at Green Bay — Two teams struggling in some ways. The difference is that Green Bay just keeps winning — most of the time. Give me the Packers, 34-29.

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Arizona at Seattle — The Seahawks showed some moxie winning in San Francisco last weekend. And now they’re at home.

Oops, wait a minute. Looking at an NFL expanded glance, where they give you various breakdowns of their record, I notice Seattle is 3-1 on the road and only 2-4 at home. OK, now you’ve got to give me the division-leading Cardinals, 27-23.

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Sunday, 8:20 p.m.

Philadelphia at Los Angeles Rams — This game could be a classic because with most of their starters available, both teams look awesome on offense. It’s the Rams defense that seems suspect, so I’ll take a flyer (a Philadelphia Flyer?) on the Eagles, 33-27.

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Monday, 8:15 p.m.

Baltimore at Los Angeles Chargers — Back-to-back nights with games in La-La Land? Normally, I’d cringe, but these are both great matchups. Again, it isn’t these teams’ strong suits I worry about, it’s their weaknesses. And I dislike the Ravens defense more than I dislike the Chargers’ offense. Chargers, 24-20.

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Last week — 10-4, 71 percent. Season — 66 percent.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.