idk lol i think the packers are always on top!

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Good question. The NFL does publish many of it's rules and definitions or at least they are not acessable to the public. For example, last offseason I tried to find rules on equipment to get the definitions of what is a legal facemask on a helmet and what is not. No where to be found.

Everytime the NFL uses Strength of Schedule in this context it is the average of winning % of the a team's opponents played.
It is not published but the math always works out to that definition. Sometimes in an NFL article it will reference the formula.

If you have gone to this link  you know the NFL assumes it is understood just like winning percentage and net points.


For example the Packers played the Eagles a .500 team and they played the Bills, a .000 team. Their strength of schedule is .250 the average of their 2 opponents.

The Bears beat the Lions a .000 team and the Cowboys a .000 team. Their Strength of Schedule is .000.

The Cowboys were beaten by a .500 team the Eagles and 1.000 team the Bears. Their Strength of Schedule is .750.

It is a number that changes from week to week. By the time week 12 rolls around it would take hours without a spreadsheet.

ONLY USE GAMES PLAYED TO CALCULATE IT.

Now change the context. Don't let me confuse you. If somone is discussing say the strength of the Packers upcoming schedule.
(Bears 1.000, Lions .000, Redskins .500, Dolphins 1.000) it is only good for that moment of time and would be the average of the winning percentages, .625. Yet it will change after each week so that context is short lived.

When used as a tiebreaker for the draft they use the average winning percentage of opponents played the previous season.

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For current standings I'm sure that's what they officially use but for the sake of projecting playoff positions I would look at the full 16 game strength of schedule. Right now that doesn't matter much but when you're talking around week 12 that could give you some better insight on who might have the actual tiebreaker should it come to that.

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At week 12 3/4 of the games are played games.
You can only go with played games and actual performance.

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I don't know if you got the point I was trying to get at. Even at that point in the season the last four games could significantly change your strength of schedule just from who you have left to play (and thus who has not been factored in to strength of schedule).

For instance, last year if you still had to play Detroit and Tampa Bay in the last four games of the season, your strength of schedule was going to drop. You may have been ahead officially on strength of schedule at that point. But over the next four games if both teams stayed tied on the other tie breakers ahead of strength of schedule, the team not playing Detroit and Tampa would end up ahead. The strength of schedule tiebreaker would not be telling the whole story of who will be ahead when it really matters, after week 17.

That's the point: not what the official standings are, but what the projection looks like going ahead.

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Interesting. But they are not talking about projections. They are talking about rankings. You can't rank someone off a projection. You don't know what Detroit and Tampa's records will be. So you can't use them in a ranking.

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