Why did the NFL decide to call off-weeks "bye weeks"?

sportsherald

The term "bye" has long been used for a situation of not playing while other competitions occur, usually as a result of having an odd number of participants. Thus the NFL did not invent the term, although the concept of providing a bye even when there were even numbers of competitors could be considered theirs. "In both Canadian and American professional football leagues, the term "bye week" refers to any week during the regular season in which a team does not play a game. Each NFL team will have one "bye week" during a normal season; this is placed on the schedule between Week 4 and Week 10. The NFL has used the bye week since 1990 so as to extend the regular season schedule to 17 weeks." -from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Bye+(sports), which also discusses how "bye" is applied in other sports. Dec 30 12, 3:23 PM