NFL Divisional Round Rest vs. Rust Trends: Do Top Seeds Benefit from Bye?

The Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers enter Saturday's NFL Divisional Round coming off a first-round bye, and a look at the "rest vs. rust" NFL betting trends and history based on the best NFL odds suggests potential danger on the horizon for this year's top seeds.

Don't bother reminding the Baltimore Ravens what happened the last time they reached the NFL Divisional Round. They've lost enough sleep over it already.

In 2019, the Ravens boasted the NFL's best record (14-2) behind NFL MVP winner Lamar Jackson, clinching the AFC's top seed and a first-round bye in the playoffs. So coach John Harbaugh rested his starters in a meaningless Week 17 affair.

Two weeks later, Baltimore was blasted by the Tennessee Titans in a shocking 28-12 defeat - the worst loss by a No. 1 seed off a bye since 2011-12 and the third-worst since the NFL changed its postseason format in 2002-03.

“We remember 2019," Harbaugh said earlier this month. "It's not something we're going to forget."

On Saturday, the Ravens (13-4) and San Francisco 49ers (12-5) will enter the Divisional Round as Super Bowl odds favorites after a two-week hiatus for the majority of their starting unit, including Jackson and 49ers QB Brock Purdy. It's the first time since 2004 that both No. 1 seeds are coming off a "double bye" after resting their starters in the regular-season finale.

That hasn't been favorable for teams in the past, as the Ravens know all too well. Let's take a look at the NFL betting trends and history for teams coming off a bye entering the Divisional Round using odds and results from our best NFL betting sites.

Rest vs. rust in NFL Divisional Round

While the "rest vs. rust" debate has its merits, one thing is for certain: the bye week is still a welcome sight for the NFL's top-seeded teams.

Since the NFL expanded in 2002, teams coming off a first-round bye in the playoffs are 54-24 straight up (69.2%) and have won by nearly a touchdown per game in that stretch. Those teams are a stellar 26-8 SU (76.5%) over the last 10 seasons with more double-digit wins (11) than outright losses (eight).

A first-round bye has also been a fast track to the Super Bowl for top seeds. In the last decade alone, 17 of the 20 finalists enjoyed a week off to open the postseason, including eight of 10 champions and both of last year's title participants.

That bodes well for the 49ers and Ravens, who enter the Divisional Round as the top Super Bowl favorites, and bettors have already penciled in a rematch of their previous Super Bowl showdown in 2013:

That said, a bye week hasn't meant much for a team's performance against the spread in the Divisional Round. Those 34 teams in the last decade have combined for a ho-hum 16-17-1 ATS record, and teams coming off a bye are 35-42-1 ATS since '02, which would make it marginally profitable to blindly bet against them each year.

And for those teams that rested their starters in the final week of the regular season? That's when the dreaded "rust" starts to eat away at top seeds' title hopes.

Too much rest for NFL's top seeds

The Ravens are the most recent example of a team entering the postseason with too much rest under their belt. But they aren't the only ones.

Since 2010, just five teams have fully rested their starters - or at least their starting QB - ahead of a first-round bye in the postseason. All five teams lost against the spread in the Divisional Round, while three of them lost outright as touchdown favorites or more:

The chart above says it all, but it's worth putting that remarkable run of futility into proper context.

Favorites won 68% of their games outright in the 2023 NFL regular season, and teams favored by a touchdown or more have won 80.4% of the time since 2003. Yet three of those five well-rested teams lost outright as touchdown favorites despite two full weeks to prepare, and the other two barely survived.

The more common strategy for teams approaching a first-round bye is to pull their starters midway through the regular-season finale. That hasn't worked, either. Only three of the last 13 teams to try that covered the spread in the Divisional Round, and six of them lost outright - even as those teams were favored by more than six points on average.

Many of those teams entered the postseason among the Super Bowl favorites, too, just like the 49ers (+175) and Ravens (+290) find themselves ahead of Saturday.

Even with extra rest and an automatic berth in the Divisional Round, only five of the 29 teams that benched or pulled their starters in the regular-season finale since 2002 went on to win the Super Bowl - including just two of the 10 teams that enjoyed a full "double bye" like this year's top seeds.

Keep that in mind when making your Super Bowl predictions.

Can Ravens, 49ers avoid rust in NFL Divisional Round?

Every situation is different in the NFL, as Harbaugh has preached for weeks as his team closed in on another first-round bye. That said, the Ravens and 49ers seem to be following a similar script that has ended in disaster for previous top seeds.

Just like in 2019, Baltimore rested its starters - including the Super Bowl MVP odds favorite - in a meaningless game against the Pittsburgh Steelers to close out the 2023 regular season. San Francisco did the same against the Los Angeles Rams, benching Purdy and other key stars ahead of a week off over Wild Card Weekend.

Could that spell a rude awakening for those teams this weekend? Both enter Saturday's Divisional Round as nearly double-digit favorites by the NFL Divisional Round odds, even with the looming specter of rust hanging over this year's No. 1 seeds:

Both of this year's top seeds face young teams with quarterbacks in their first career postseason, though C.J. Stroud (Houston Texans) and Jordan Love (Green Bay Packers) are both coming off arguably the best playoff debuts we've ever seen. Those two each finished with the fourth-highest passer rating in NFL postseason history (157.2) to lead their teams to blowout wins in the wild-card round.

Clearly, neither top seed is taking Saturday's opponent lightly, especially with two full weeks to recover and prepare for the postseason ahead. They also have the benefit of experience, as both of these head coaches have previously led their teams past the Divisional Round after a first-round bye and have coached in the Super Bowl as a head coach or assistant, too.

But that doesn't mean this weekend doesn't present a monumental hurdle for these two teams after nearly three weeks of rest. Just ask the Ravens.

See our Texans vs. Ravens prediction and Packers vs. 49ers prediction

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