Every Wednesday of the 2022 season, ESPN will combine with Champion Data to provide an in-depth analysis on a particular hot topic in the AFL.
Ask any AFL coach, and probably most players, and they'll say having a bye week is unequivocally beneficial.
This is true perhaps physically - footy players run, on average, between 12-20 kilometres per game in a high-intensity, rapid-paced and simply brutal sport, and have to put ample time into their rehab and recovery.
The workload is immense, so wouldn't they love a week off to refresh, get the body right to enhance future performance?
Maybe not to those who understand the numbers, with champion Data's latest findings revealing teams coming off a bye lose more often than they win.
In 2016, Geelong earned the right to a week off and home preliminary final after holding off Hawthorn in a qualifying final for the ages -- thanks to an errant Isaac Smith shot after the siren -- meaning they played just one game in 27 days.
The Cats finished with a 17-5 home-and-away record that year, but were left to rue a 37-point loss to Sydney who jumped out of the gates to boot the first seven goals of the game and earn a spot in the Grand Final.
But Geelong coach Chris Scott wasn't going to blame the week's rest, insisting clubs, including his, would still prefer it.
"I would rather it had been us (with the week off) ... I still maintain that position," Scott said after the match.
"We clearly need to analyse how we approached it. We were confident going in, and we thought we gave ourselves every chance.
"I said a fortnight ago I wouldn't be sitting here if we don't get the result saying, 'it was the bye in Round 23 that killed us'.
"It was completely in our control and we didn't deliver."
Richmond coach Damien Hardwick made a similar refutation after his side's 2018 prelim final loss to Collingwood.
The only problem is, the numbers disagree.
Byes returned to footy in 2011 when expansion side Gold Coast entered the competition, and every club has 'enjoyed' at least a week's rest in each season since.
In numbers since 2012 -- to include every year GWS has been involved -- there have been 153 results where a team coming off a bye has matched up against a team that played the week before. The 'well-rested' teams have won just 45% of those games, and only six sides have a winning record in these contests.
Bye teams vs. non bye teams
Adelaide - wins: 5, draws: 0, losses: 3
Brisbane - wins: 5, draws: 0, losses: 3
Carlton - wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 4
Collingwood - wins: 5, draws: 0, losses: 3
Essendon - wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 4
Fremantle - wins: 2, draws: 0, losses: 4
Geelong - wins: 1, draws: 0, losses: 7
Gold Coast - wins: 1, draws: 0, losses: 8
GWS - wins: 2, draws: 0, losses: 9
Hawthorn - wins: 7, draws: 0, losses: 0
Melbourne - wins: 5, draws: 0, losses: 5
North Melbourne - wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 4
Port Adelaide - wins: 3, draws: 0, losses: 7
Richmond - wins: 6, draws: 0, losses: 5
St Kilda - wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 6
Sydney - wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 3
West Coast - wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 4
Western Bulldogs - wins: 3, draws: 0, losses: 5
Put simply, the bye rounds do not boost a team's winning chances the following week, and teams seem best served by continuity.
Looking at the overall win and loss table below, the Hawks have been the main beneficiary of bye weeks -- unsurprising given their success in the form of three flags during the 2010s -- winning 11 of 16 matches after having a bye since 2012, with three of those losses coming in a recent set of consecutive years between 2018-2020.
Despite defeats in 2020 and 2021, the Tigers have won the most matches after a week off (13 from 19), while Adelaide, West Coast and Fremantle are the only other teams in the competition who have a positive winning record coming off the benefits of a one-week rest.
Gold Coast lay claim to the worst post-bye record having won just once (a 38-point win over the Saints in 2014) since joining the competition over a decade ago, but it's the team that's featured in 14 of the past 15 finals series' that surprises the most.
The Cats have played 17 matches after a bye week and have won a woeful 23.5% of them -- better than only the Suns - which is a far cry from their 66.53% general winning record over the same period.
Port Adelaide, despite a total percentage of 105.26% in post-bye encounters, also have a losing 6-11 record and win percentage of just 35.3%.
The Swans are in a similar boat but, in their case, have the third highest percentage (114.84%) of all teams coming off a bye, despite winning just eight from 18.
There has only been one draw (North Melbourne and GWS last year).
Your team's matches after a bye since 2012
Hawthorn - matches: 16, wins: 11, draws: 0, losses: 5, win rate: 68.8%, percentage: 112.82%
Richmond - matches: 19, wins: 13, draws: 0, losses: 6, win rate: 68.4%, percentage: 118.41%
Adelaide - matches: 15, wins: 10, draws: 0, losses: 5, win rate: 66.7%, percentage: 113.47%
West Coast - matches: 17, wins: 11, draws: 0, losses: 6, win rate: 64.7%, percentage: 117.13%
Fremantle - matches: 14, wins: 9, draws: 0, losses: 5, win rate: 64.3%, percentage: 106.94%
Melbourne - matches: 14, wins: 7, draws: 0, losses: 7, win rate: 50.0%, percentage: 108.00%
Western Bulldogs - matches: 14, wins: 7, draws: 0, losses: 7, win rate: 50.0%, percentage: 92.24%
St Kilda - matches: 12, wins: 6, draws: 0, losses: 6, win rate: 50.0%, percentage: 85.42%
Collingwood - matches: 15, wins: 7, draws: 0, losses: 8, win rate: 46.7%, percentage: 99.08%
Sydney - matches: 18, wins: 8, draws: 0, losses: 10, win rate: 44.4%, percentage: 114.84%
Brisbane - matches: 14, wins: 6, draws: 0, losses: 8, win rate: 42.9%, percentage: 88.41%
Essendon - matches: 15, wins: 6, draws: 0, losses: 9, win rate: 40.0%, percentage: 85.07%
Carlton - matches: 13, wins: 5, draws: 0, losses: 8, win rate: 38.5%, percentage: 80.36%
GWS - matches: 19, wins: 7, draws: 1, losses: 11, win rate: 36.8%, percentage: 94.07%
Port Adelaide - matches: 17, wins: 6, draws: 0, losses: 11, win rate: 35.3%, percentage: 105.26%
North Melbourne - matches: 12, wins: 4, draws: 1, losses: 7, win rate: 33.3%, percentage: 87.30%
Geelong - matches: 17, wins: 4, draws: 0, losses: 13, win rate: 23.5%, percentage: 86.46%
Gold Coast - matches: 12, wins: 1, draws: 0, losses: 11, win rate: 8.3%, percentage: 59.04%
There could be many factors that influence these numbers like with all games. There's the in-game luck aspect, and then fixture imbalance and the difficulty of opponents faced by certain teams, which of course is skewed by the pre-finals bye with sides having to face a fellow flag contender.
It's why looking at pure overall win-loss might not tell us the full story.
Enter the home or away influence, with interstate travel actually becoming a more arduous task after a week off. (Above graphic shows local winr % in blue, and interstate win % in orange).
Unsurprisingly, just two teams, Richmond and Hawthorn, have a winning interstate record when coming off a bye. Geelong and Port Adelaide (two wins each from eight and nine matches respectively), are joined by the Swans, Carlton, Kangaroos and Suns (all one win) as teams with a win rate of 25% or lower in interstate matches after a week's rest.
This completely changes when looking at each team's record in local contests. Interstate clubs Adelaide (10 games) and West Coast (12 games) have won 80% and 75% of 'home' matches after a bye, while Freo are equal third with 70%, and the currently-slumbering Roos are the sixth-best team with 60%. The 2-7 Cats and 2-3 Bombers are the two worst performing teams when staying in Victoria following a bye.
The rest may have nothing to do with it; it could be inaccurate goal-kicking or a missed free kick that impacts results in these games like any other, but there's no doubting that teams coming off the bye haven't fared well in the last decade.
Teams are just not statistically advantaged after a week off.