NFL Strength of Schedule

The NFL released its 2008 schedule on Tuesday, and while I never put much stock in strength of schedule analysis, especially for fantasy football, it is always entertaining water cooler fodder. Particularly entertaining this year is the fact that last season’s undefeated team has the easiest schedule in the league this year. How’d that happen? Yeah, I know the Patriots get to play the 1-15 Dolphins twice, but c’mon!

Below you will find each team’s strength of schedule, ordered from toughest to easiest based on the last year’s winning percentage of this year’s opponents.

Steelers	0.598
Colts	0.594
Jaguars	0.559
Vikings	0.551
Ravens	0.551
Titans	0.551
Bengals	0.547
Texans	0.547
Browns	0.547
Lions	0.543
Bears	0.531
Packers	0.531
Redskins	0.523
Cowboys	0.523
Eagles	0.520
Giants	0.520
Rams	0.488
49ers	0.484
Seahawks	0.477
Buccaneers	0.469
Falcons	0.469
Cardinals	0.465
Dolphins	0.465
Panthers	0.465
Jets	0.457
Chiefs	0.453
Bills	0.449
Saints	0.449
Broncos	0.445
Raiders	0.438
Chargers	0.422
Patriots	0.387

In terms of fantasy football analysis, the strength of schedule alone tells us almost nothing. Fantasy owners can begin gleaning some useful tidbits once the schedule is broken down into defensive splits (against the run and against the pass) but even then you must take into account all the offseason roster shuffling that has transpired, including free agency and the NFL draft. And even after all of that data is taken into account, the strength of your forecast grows less useful by the week because of injuries and the performance of the players throughout the season. Therefore, you can put some stock into forecasting the strength of opponents in September on draft day in August, but don’t bother using your schedule analysis of fantasy playoff time (weeks 14-16) for anything more than tie-breaker criteria when evaluating two players of similar value.