Timing of Bengals' bye week in 2025 schedule has some historical significance that bodes well for Cincinnati

There are 17 games on tap for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2025, but the regular season is a grand total of 18 weeks. 

The bye week, and where it falls on the schedule, matters to everyone on the team. 

An NFL team's week of rest during the four-month onslaught of competition has become even more crucial in the last several years after the schedule went from 16 games to 17 in 2021, the same year the Bengals went to the Super Bowl. 

It was also a year in which Cincinnati's bye week was the same as it is on this year's schedule.

Bengals 2025 bye week falls on a familiar spot

The Bengals will play nine consecutive games to start the 2025 slate before taking their bye in Week 10. It's about as central a bye week can get for a 17-game schedule as they'll finish with eight consecutive games to wrap up the season.

Week 10 was also Cincinnati's bye week in 2021 and 2022, with both seasons resulting in the Bengals wearing the AFC North crown. 

And there's more. 

The NFL re-introduced bye weeks in 1990 after removing them in 1966. Cincinnati won the AFC Central that season with a Week 10 bye. 15 years would pass until the Bengals won their division again in 2005. Their bye week? Week 10.

Four of Cincinnati's seven division titles in the last 35 years featured the team taking Week 10 off. Week 10 in a 17-week schedule isn't exactly the same as it is in an 18-week schedule, but it's an interesting fact nonetheless. The Bengals had a Week 8 bye in 2009, and Week 12 in 2013, and Week 7 in 2015.

Bye weeks are the primary source of a club's rest period during the season, but how rested one team is relative to its opponents also matters. 

When looking at Net Rest Days, which measures how much a team team's rest schedule compares to their opponents, the Bengals are in the green for the first time since 2022. They had the second-highest net total in 2021.