NFL exec explains why Patriots won't have bye following London game (2024)

Patriots

The Patriots are opting to immediately continue their season following their matchup with the Jaguars.

By Conor Roche

May 18, 2024 | 1:34 PM

The Patriots are heading to Europe for a second straight season, but they won’t get an extended break following their trip in 2024.

New England will not have a bye week after it takes on the Jacksonville Jaguars in London in Week 7. It’ll head back stateside and host the New York Jets in Week 8, playing six games after the London trip before a bye in Week 14.

That’s obviously a change from last season, when the Patriots had a bye following their Week 10 trip to Frankfurt, Germany, against the Colts. It’s also different from how most teams approach trips overseas, often taking a bye week following a game.

NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North explained on a conference call that more teams are opting to bypass having the bye week after their European trip for multiple reasons.

“There were challenges for us all, and the bye coming back just kind of seemed like a must-have,” North said. “It was really only after a couple of years where our teams started to realize that if you’re playing in the afternoon in Europe and you’re playing in the morning over here in the States, quite often you’re getting back to your airport, you’re getting back to your facility maybe even earlier than if you were playing for an East Coast team, a game on the West Coast. They’re back in their buildings from a London game earlier than they’d be back in their building from a game in Seattle.”

As North alluded to, the Patriots should, ideally, arrive back in Foxborough by late Sunday night following their Week 7 game against the Jaguars earlier that day. The 9:30 a.m. kickoff means the game should be over by 1 p.m. When you add a few hours of postgame obligations, treatment, and other routines to the roughly seven-hour flight it takes from London to Boston, the team should land home before midnight, like it would for a typical road game.

The bigger concern teams seem to have is when to arrive in foreign cities for international games. Teams have arrived in those cities anywhere between Tuesday and Friday the week of their international games. For instance, the Patriots opted to fly overnight the Thursday prior to their game against the Colts in Germany so they could land Friday morning.

North said more teams are starting to take that approach with their foreign trips due to continuity.

“The majority of our clubs now are starting to look at these international games as truly routine,” North said. “They used to go over for the whole week, and now they’re kind of going over for Friday, Saturday, and just really staying in their routine, coming back to a home game and looking for that bye to slide even later in the season. So clubs are given the option if they want the bye to tell us, and we’ll do what we can to accommodate that.”

The Patriots aren’t the only team that opted not to have its bye week following its trip to Europe. The Jets and Jaguars will also keep playing after their respective travels.

The Bills took a similar approach last year. They played the Jaguars in London in Week 5 and didn’t have their bye week until Week 13. They went 3-4 in the seven games between those dates.

Also similar to the Bills, the Patriots will face the Jaguars a week after they played a game in London. Jacksonville will take on the Chicago Bears in Week 6 this year, allowing the Jaguars to remain in London between games.

The Patriots have some advantages in their schedule in 2024. They don’t have a game against any opponent coming off a bye. While their bye week is late in the year, they have a mini-bye following their Week 3 Thursday night game against the Jets.

However, the Patriots are also set to travel the fourth-most miles in 2024 (25,071),according to Bookies.com’s Bill Speros. They also aren’t favored to win a single game in the upcoming season.