The primary benefit to getting a bye in the playoffs is that you get what is in essence an automatic win. No matter how bad the team you’re playing in, the only team that is truly impossible to lose to is the bye. The secondary benefit is rest. The NFL season is a grind unlike any other sport. Despite playing fewer games than every other major sport, football’s inherit violence leads to players constantly being on the scale of hurt-to-injured. The bye provides a respite from the constant battering and an opportunity to get healthy. You can see this with the Green Bay Packers, whose only DNP in Tuesday’s practice was Kingsley Keke.
Football is a war of attrition, and the Rams took a major blow in the Wild Card round
