Season 32 Strength of Schedule Analysis

My favorite proprietary statistic is Opponents Adjusted Pythagorean Win Expectancy. This adds up all of a team’s opponents’ Pythagorean Win Expectancy (scoring margin) to show how hard a schedule truly was. Scoring margin is a better indicator of team ability than record because close game are fluky, the best teams blow out their opponents, and the worst teams get blown out.

 

There is one catch though, before adding up the Pythagorean Win Expectancy for each team on the schedule, I remove all games played against that team. For example, if I am calculating Opponents Adjusted Pythagorean Win Expectancy for the 49ers, I would go through each opponent on the 49ers schedule and calculate their Pythagorean Win Expectancy without games played against the 49ers. When I get to the Cardinals, only 14 games would be used to calculate their Pythagorean Win Expectancy for the purposes of figuring out how hard the 49ers schedule is. However, when I get to the Redskins, no games are removed because the 49ers and Redskins did not play each other last season.

 

The reason I do this is so that teams that are particularly bad or good, do not influence the win expectancy of their opponents. For example, the Browns opponents would have a deflated Win Expectancy because the Browns beat so many of their opponent’s handily. By removing games played against the Browns, this tells how hard their schedule is independent of playing the Browns. This allows it to be compared across the league.

1. Raiders

2. Ravens

3. Broncos

4. Giants

5. Eagles

6. Cowboys

7. Chargers

8. Steelers

 

These 8 teams have the most difficult schedules in the league this season. The hardest schedule in the league goes to the Oakland Raiders by virtue of getting two in division playoff teams, the AFC North and NFC South. A common theme among all of these teams is that they play in very difficult divisions.

1. Bears

2. Lions

3. Vikings

4. Jaguars

5. Texans

 

These 5 teams have the easiest schedules in the league. Not a huge surprise with this group. All 5 teams either play the NFC North or are from the NFC North. The best of these teams by Pythagorean Win Expectancy was the Detroit Lions. I would expect them to capitalize and retake the NFC North crown (thorn bush?). Both the Texans and Jaguars struggled last season irrespective of schedule and the Colts and Titans are not far behind on ease of schedule.  I still think this is a two team race for the AFC South.

1. Texans

2. Colts

3. Dolphins

4. Lions

5. 49ers

6. Cardinals

7. Titans

 

These 7 teams had their schedule difficulty drop the most (become easier). The 49ers not only get their QB of the future after “playing young players” for most of the season, but they also benefit from one of the easiest schedule compared to last year. The Niners were never as bad as a 3-13 team and should make huge strides this season. The same can be said for the Dolphins who finished closer to an 8 win team than a 1.5 team by Pythagorean Win Expectation. Look for the Dolphins to make a jump in the AFC. Good news for the Titans is that after going 12-4 and hosting a playoff game last year, their schedule gets even easier this season. The bad news, the Colts benefitted even more than the Titans in the schedule department.

1. Broncos

2. Cowboys

3. Giants

4. Chargers

5. Raiders

6. Redskins

7. Eagles

 

These 6 teams had largest increase in schedule difficulty (schedule become harder). I would expect most of these teams to take a step back this season. The exception would be the result of having a great off season, internal improvement, or just getting better – e.g. the Titans last year. In my opinion, the only team on this list that has had the type of offseason to offset any increase in schedule difficulty are the Eagles.

Last season I unveiled my Pythagorean Adjusted Power Rankings. This season I developed a method to reverse engineering those rankings to produce a predicted end of season ranking by record. In other words, it predicts that when the season is finished, this is how teams will rank according to won-loss record. I added a subjective offseason modifier to each team based on how well I think the team did in the offseason and took into account new users for Steelers, Panthers, and Bills. In parenthesis is how far up or down from where the team finished by record in season 31.

 

Warning, there are some doozies:

 

1. Rams (+0)

2. Browns (+5)

3. Colts (+19)

4. Jets (+2)

5. Cardinals (+19)

6. Titans (+2)

7. Buccaneers (+5)

8. 49ers (+21)

9. Chargers (-6)

10. Giants (-8)

11. Steelers (-7)

12. Dolphins (+19)

13. Eagles (+3)

14. Bengals (+3)

15. Falcons (+2)

16. Lions (+4)

17. Bills (+6)

18. Panthers (-13)

19. Patriots (-4)

20. Saints (-1)

21. Raiders (-7)

22. Texans (+8)

23. Broncos (-14)

24. Jaguars (+1)

25. Chiefs (-8)

26. Seahawks (+0)

27. Redskins (-9)

28. Cowboys (-18)

29. Packers (-8)

30. Bears (-3)

31. Ravens (-3)

32. Vikings (+0)