The NFCN teams' strength of schedule is totally out of proportion. I mean, adding 0-32 to any schedule will pull it down bigtime.

Ofcourse, playing the NFC West helps aswell.

This really doesn't say anything though. Look at the Falcons and Dolphins last year. The Lions have a RB in place and an amazing receiver. Take a QB early in the draft and a Tackle with their 20th pick and we pretty much have last years Falcons. Although I do think that they should groom Stafford, if the pick him, but still.

It's because the Lions don't get to play themselves. Seriously. The Bears, Vikes, and Packers each get to play two games against an 0-16 team, while the Lions don't have the privilege of playing that team because they ARE that team. That's what skews the rankings.

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We have a winner..

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Only two games out of 16 are based on a team finishing equivalent to your team. As a result, good teams do not end up playing a lot of other good teams and bad teams don't play a lot of other bad teams.

I've seen these strength-of-schedule discussions for years and years, usually when a team is doing well and people counter that team wasn't good, they were lucky because of their schedule. But those arguments many times are for something like a .425 score versus .420. Is that really a big deal?

I've come to the conclusion that strength-of-schedule is meaningless. It's just something for people to talk about when there is nothing else to talk about.

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We get to play the 0-16 lions twice, same for the vikes and bears, this undoubtly tips the scales.

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If the rest of our schedule was .500, the Lions alone would drop our S.O.S. to 0.4375.

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Quote:

"A common question I get from football fans concerns the NFL's scheduling procedures and how a team's opponents are determined. Since the realignment that moved the NFL to an eight-division league, the scheduling format has become quite simple actually.
Each team plays home and away against its three division opponents, which accounts for six games on the schedule.

Each team plays four teams from another division within its conference on a rotating three-year cycle, which accounts for four more games.

Each team plays four teams from a division in the other conference on a rotating four-year cycle, which accounts for another four games.

Each team plays two intraconference games based on the prior year's standings. For example, the first-place team in a division will play against the first-place team from another division within the same conference. The second place team in a division will play against the second-place team from another division within the same conference, etc... "


As you can see prior years "strength" has only a portion of the bearing on schedule, both direct and indirect.

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It's not a surprise that the SOS for the NFC N teams are so low. The Lions as an outlier are dragging down the strength of schedule, especially for those who play them twice (surprise surprise, NFC North teams). Although I'm too lazy to calculate, I would probably expect the NFC North somewhere around the low 20s, maybe even high 10s without the inclusion of the Lions.

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With FA era, this has become less and less of a factor, rosters turn over so quickly yearly for a good share of teams that this is almost irrelevant to factor in projecting into next season.

I see this more of a factor in season towards the tail end of the season and the playoffs.. but from year to year.. is it really worth the paper it is printed on?

Debatable at best.. 😉

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What would make the schedule even easier for the Packers is if we play the Vikings at some point during the first 4 weeks because the Williams brothers will be suspended for the first 4 games... One could hope 🙂

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