“You don’t realize how much training camp really takes out of you early in that season”
When the San Francisco 49ers 2019 schedule was released a little over a month ago, there were a few initial complaints. The early start times. The brutal final month, and the early bye week. 49ers fullback Kyle Jusczcyk was on 95.7 The Game Thursday and had an interesting takeaway about the teams’ Week 4 bye week. Here’s what he had to say:
”As an NFL player, the first thing that I look at when I get the schedule is I look for when is our bye week? That was what really kind of jumped out to me this year is the bye week in Week 4 is something I’ve never dealt with before, and I’m interested to see how that is going to play out.”
As someone looking from the outside in, you’d think the players would prefer a bye week in the middle of the season. That way they could re-charge and make a push for the playoffs, especially in the 49ers case. Jusczcyk had an interesting point that I don’t think a lot of us consider when we see the early bye week on the schedule.
“But I actually feel like it’s going to be a positive for us because you don’t realize how much training camp really takes out of you early in that season. To be able to get that week off in Week 4, I think will be huge for the rest of the season.”
Taking into account all the work that goes in from July when training camp kicks off up until the first week of the season in September, an early bye week could be viewed as a good thing.
Jusczcyk also mentioned how the schedule in the middle of the season gives the 49ers a mini-bye week. So there will time for extra rest.
“And then, I think it’s around Week 11 or 12 (it’s actually Week 9), we go from a Thursday to a Monday (game),” Juszczyk continued, “which is basically another little mini-bye week in there. So I think we kind of built in two good rest periods that I think are going to be clutch for us in just staying fresh throughout the season.”
I’m sure Shanahan will give the team a few days off after that Week 9 Thursday game. There are ways you can manipulate the schedule to get rest. I wonder if this is how the majority of players feel.
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