‘Time away, not time off.’ How the Dolphins attacked the bye week
The bye week presents a unique opportunity.
On one hand, a player can get some much-needed rest. On the other, a player can use the time off to hone in on a particular skill that often gets skipped during the week-to-week grind that’s the NFL season. Either way, the Miami Dolphins are back, and how the team approached the bye will soon be revealed Sunday when they take on the New Orleans Saints. Hopefully, they have heeded the advice of defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver.
“It’s time away, not time off,” said Weaver, who played seven years in the NFL. “The first thing, obviously, you need to get some rest and recharge a little bit just to make sure your body can heal. But you also want to make sure you stay in shape, and then figure out if there’s any facet of your game that you can improve on.”
Added Weaver: “You just want to make sure that you invest that time and not just go sit on the couch and play Call of Duty for six days.”
Movement, as Weaver alluded to, should play a big role in the bye week. Players cannot just think of the week as a mini vacation. They are professional athletes after all.
That, however, ultimately depends on whether they stay in South Florida.
“For the guys that stay here, it’s just kind of being able to utilize the facility,” offensive lineman Daniel Brunskill said. “The guys that go home, it’s a little tougher because you don’t have those same things. But [San Francisco 49ers general manager] John Lynch told me that back when we had a bye week for the Super Bowl or even for the offseason, if you can’t go and work out or there’s no field to go on, just go on a walk. Get exercise that way.”
And Brunskill made sure to do just that — even though he didn’t travel.
“I like to come in,” Brunskill said. “I’ll go take my shoes off, go running on the field — just barefoot — and then I’ll come in and get some stretches. And then I’ll usually hit the sauna and the cold tubs.”
Although there were certainly people who used the time to get away from Miami, a healthy group of players made sure to grow during the bye, according to Zach Sieler who praised his teammates for their lack of complacency.
“It’s a great time for guys to get out for a second, recoup and reset their minds,” the star defensive tackle said. “We tell the young guys, ‘Don’t fully just disappear — do something. Whether that’s focus on your diet, get an extra workout in or whatever’ and they did that.”
“Today was a great day out there on the field to get our feet back and keep working and work on some things you specifically don’t get to focus on,” Sieler continued.
Regardless of the team’s whereabouts, the ultimate focus should be on how they can harness their momentum. Prior to the Week 12 bye, the Dolphins strung together their first back-to-back wins of the 2025 season with victories against the Buffalo Bills and Washington Commanders.
“When you have that momentum, you’re solving a different set of problems then sometimes you’re trying to create that momentum after the bye,” coach Mike McDaniel said, later adding that with this team, the emphasis was “trying to make sure that we come into the work week utilizing the bye for west but not taking a step back in the development of our football.”
Some big games lay on the horizon. That, of course, doesn’t matter now. Only one team matters each week. In this case, it’s the Saints.
