Strength of Schedule

[DavidO]

I was watching the highlights programme today after yesterday's great win...

One thing that stood out was the commentators stating that the Jets had an easy schedule...

Do the Pats not have the same schedule as us? Are the schedules not the same for all 4 teams in the AFC East?



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[SackExchange]

I was watching the highlights programme today after yesterday's great win...

One thing that stood out was the commentators stating that the Jets had an easy schedule...

Do the Pats not have the same schedule as us? Are the schedules not the same for all 4 teams in the AFC East?



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

I heard this argument from Pats fans, too. Up to this past Week, Week 16, the Jets' opponents have had a combined 98 wins, the Pats 105. If you include Week 17, the Jets' opponents will be at 105 and the Pats' opponents at 110.

The Jets' wins have been against teams with a 39% winning percentage, the Pats' wins against teams with a 44% winning percentage, as rounded up for both. So the Pats have had a similarly weak schedule as the Jets.

The Pats' schedule has been marginally, at best, better than the Jets' schedule. The Pats have won four games against teams above .500 right now, and the best of the bunch is the Jets with 10 wins. They also beat the Steelers with 9 wins, and the Texans and Redskins, each at 8-7.

The Jets are the Pats' best win of the year, by record.

 

[SackExchange]

Of course, I also had a Pats fan try to claim that the Jets played a fifth place schedule this year. I told him this was impossible, since there are only four teams in each division.

Pats fans aren't real football fans. According to every Pats fan, they all suffered through sitting on cold metal bleachers at Shaefer Stadium. Yet, as I recall it, they couldn't draw any kinds of crowds there. If all the people who claimed to have gone had actually gone, they would have sold above capacity for the past 40 years.

Basically, until Mo Lewis hit Drew Bledsoe, the Pats were nothing more than a diversion that filled the time between when the Sox were officially and inevitably eliminated and when pitchers and catchers reported.

 

[Jet Fan RI]

I was watching the highlights programme today after yesterday's great win...

One thing that stood out was the commentators stating that the Jets had an easy schedule...

Do the Pats not have the same schedule as us? Are the schedules not the same for all 4 teams in the AFC East?



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

I did not check all the teams' schedules. But there should be 2 games on each of the schedules that can differ. Of the 16 games, 6 are against division opponents. Eight more games are against 2 specific divisions that the AFC East plays against that particular season. This year, the AFC East played the NFC east and the AFC South. The last 2 games are supposed to be selected based on each team's performance from last season. So since the Pats won the SB they would get 2 tougher opponents than the Jets, based on their 4-12 finish last year.

 

[maxmet]

http://football.about.com/cs/football101/a/bl_schedproced.htm

is a good discussion

 

[flgreen]

The Pats played Denver, and Pittsburgh, and went 1-1

the Jets played Oakland, and the browns, and went 1-1

 

[DavidO]

http://football.about.com/cs/football101/a/bl_schedproced.htm

is a good discussion

That is a good article. Makes sense...

Unlike the QB rating calculator... Eek! Who thought that one up? [emoji2]

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[HYATT™]

Strength of Schedule is an ineffective measure of what particular teams were like at the time any given team played them.
Would CAR be ranked as being as tough in Week 6, when they barely skated by a SEA team that had almost lost to DET and DID lose to CIN the next week - or would CAR be ranked as being as soft as they were in losing to ATL (13-20) this past week?
Neither really reflects the caliber of CAR across the entire season or the CAR that dropped a 40 bomb on WAS in Week 11.

The Jets lost to OAK at a point when OAK was in the middle of a 3-game hot streak.
NE lost to Brock Ostweiler in his 2nd-ever NFL start.

PHI beat both teams by 7 points, but PHI pretty much ran over NE, pausing for 1 week in their death spiral - while the Jets tore PHI a new one while they were on the ascendance earlier in the season.
How good was PHI in Week 3 vs Week 13?
That's where SoS fails us as a metric, usable to figure out which teams had the hardest row to hoe all year.

 

[jetgreen13]

Strength of Schedule is an ineffective measure of what particular teams were like at the time any given team played them.
Would CAR be ranked as being as tough in Week 6, when they barely skated by a SEA team that had almost lost to DET and DID lose to CIN the next week - or would CAR be ranked as being as soft as they were in losing to ATL (13-20) this past week?
Neither really reflects the caliber of CAR across the entire season or the CAR that dropped a 40 bomb on WAS in Week 11.

The Jets lost to OAK at a point when OAK was in the middle of a 3-game hot streak.
NE lost to Brock Ostweiler in his 2nd-ever NFL start.

PHI beat both teams by 7 points, but PHI pretty much ran over NE, pausing for 1 week in their death spiral - while the Jets tore PHI a new one while they were on the ascendance earlier in the season.
How good was PHI in Week 3 vs Week 13?
That's where SoS fails us as a metric, usable to figure out which teams had the hardest row to hoe all year.

i agree with most if not all of this post..

strength of schedule is week to week because it's all about ebb & flow as you stated..

& it makes even less sense to me when it's projected on the next season before FA & the draft..

 

[ucrenegade]

Any given sunday...........

 

[HYATT™]

Projecting the SoS forward is COMPLETE & UTTER hogwash of the 1st water.
No serious NFL fans would ever consider such a thing - which helps explain why the mainstream bobbleheads DO do it.
It's of limited use at best, as a retrospective interpretive tool to try and understand what happened over the past season - and ONLY at the end of a season.

 

[Mainejet]

I was watching the highlights programme today after yesterday's great win...

One thing that stood out was the commentators stating that the Jets had an easy schedule...

Do the Pats not have the same schedule as us? Are the schedules not the same for all 4 teams in the AFC East?



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Actually, no. The patsies had to play teams like Pittsburgh and Denver. Jets did not. Based on last season the Jets most certainly had the easier schedule between the two. Remember, up until last weekend the Jets hadn't beaten a team with s winning record since about week 9 of last season, more than a year. That's why the real proving ground for all the development/success we've had this season is NEXT season. We'll get a schedule based on a (likely) 11-5 playoff team. If we hold our own with a tough schedule, then we'll know our success was not just due to an easy schedule.

 

[HYATT™]

Actually, no. The patsies had to play teams like Pittsburgh and Denver. Jets did not. Based on last season the Jets most certainly had the easier schedule between the two. Remember, up until last weekend the Jets hadn't beaten a team with s winning record since about week 9 of last season, more than a year. That's why the real proving ground for all the development/success we've had this season is NEXT season. We'll get a schedule based on a (likely) 11-5 playoff team. If we hold our own with a tough schedule, then we'll know our success was not just due to an easy schedule.

And the projected SoS could just as easily fall apart and there would STILL be no proof of how well the Jets did until the 2016 season was over.
Who, at the end of last season or the beginning of this one, expected DAL to end up a (4-12) team and picking 4th or 5th in the 2016 draft?
Ditto the Crows and Fillipé Rivers?
"Not I", said the blind man.

 

[SackExchange]

Actually, no. The patsies had to play teams like Pittsburgh and Denver. Jets did not. Based on last season the Jets most certainly had the easier schedule between the two. Remember, up until last weekend the Jets hadn't beaten a team with s winning record since about week 9 of last season, more than a year. That's why the real proving ground for all the development/success we've had this season is NEXT season. We'll get a schedule based on a (likely) 11-5 playoff team. If we hold our own with a tough schedule, then we'll know our success was not just due to an easy schedule.

I already established earlier in this thread that the schedules were quite similar, and the Pats only had a marginally more difficult schedule.

Actually, the Jets were the Pats' best win of the season.

 

[SackExchange]

Actually, no. The patsies had to play teams like Pittsburgh and Denver. Jets did not. Based on last season the Jets most certainly had the easier schedule between the two. Remember, up until last weekend the Jets hadn't beaten a team with s winning record since about week 9 of last season, more than a year. That's why the real proving ground for all the development/success we've had this season is NEXT season. We'll get a schedule based on a (likely) 11-5 playoff team. If we hold our own with a tough schedule, then we'll know our success was not just due to an easy schedule.

Citing numbers:

Up to this past Week, Week 16, the Jets' opponents have had a combined 98 wins, the Pats 105. If you include Week 17, the Jets' opponents will be at 105 and the Pats' opponents at 110.

The Jets' wins have been against teams with a 39% winning percentage, the Pats' wins against teams with a 44% winning percentage, as rounded up for both. So the Pats have had a similarly weak schedule as the Jets.

The Pats' schedule has been marginally, at best, better than the Jets' schedule. The Pats have won four games against teams above .500 right now, and the best of the bunch is the Jets with 10 wins. They also beat the Steelers with 9 wins, and the Texans and Redskins, each at 8-7.

 

[mykcuz]

I was watching the highlights programme today after yesterday's great win...

One thing that stood out was the commentators stating that the Jets had an easy schedule...

Do the Pats not have the same schedule as us? Are the schedules not the same for all 4 teams in the AFC East?



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

To answer your question, no.

We both played all 4nfc easy teams.
But we have 2 flex games against the 2 remaining afc divisions. We play our counterpart, so the Patriots face the two division leaders, where we play the teams that finished last, since we finished last at 4-12 as I remember.

So we play,
6 games in division (afc east )
4 games against 1rotating nfc division
4 games against 1 rotating afc division (afc south in 2015)
1 game in afc north division (flex)
1 game in final afc west division (flex)
These 2 flex games are the only difference.



So it's a2 game difference based on last year's performance. But we also played the Cowboys without Romo, which could have been the luck of the draw if he were healthy to return and play for the division, compared to the others playing them without him. It never happened, but had it, it would not be reflected in strength of schedule.

Next year we play the afc north(Bengals, steelers, ravens, browns), so our 2 flex games would be kc/Denver, and possibly Houston/indy (wirth luck back).

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[Mainejet]

Citing numbers:

Up to this past Week, Week 16, the Jets' opponents have had a combined 98 wins, the Pats 105. If you include Week 17, the Jets' opponents will be at 105 and the Pats' opponents at 110.

The Jets' wins have been against teams with a 39% winning percentage, the Pats' wins against teams with a 44% winning percentage, as rounded up for both. So the Pats have had a similarly weak schedule as the Jets.

The Pats' schedule has been marginally, at best, better than the Jets' schedule. The Pats have won four games against teams above .500 right now, and the best of the bunch is the Jets with 10 wins. They also beat the Steelers with 9 wins, and the Texans and Redskins, each at 8-7.

You're splitting hairs. The Patsies may have a marginally better schedule, but it is better. Your win totals are irrelevant as everyones schedulr is based on last season. And the Patsies beating 4 winning teams is a huge difference between us and them. Beating 4 winning teams in a season that only has 16 games is huge. When the Jets can start consistently beating teams they should beat like Buffalo and Miami, then we could make a case to say we are on an even par with NE. Right now, we just beat a team with a winning record. That's a big step in the right direction. But first things first. Lets see how this team handles an entire season with a playoff team schedule and then we'll also have statistics to back it up.

 

[mykcuz]

You're splitting hairs. The Patsies may have a marginally better schedule, but it is better. Your win totals are irrelevant as everyones schedulr is based on last season. And the Patsies beating 4 winning teams is a huge difference between us and them. Beating 4 winning teams in a season that only has 16 games is huge. When the Jets can start consistently beating teams they should beat like Buffalo and Miami, then we could make a case to say we are on an even par with NE. Right now, we just beat a team with a winning record. That's a big step in the right direction. But first things first. Lets see how this team handles an entire season with a playoff team schedule and then we'll also have statistics to back it up.

We can't consider ourselves on par with ne as an organization until we make the playoffs 2 straight years and scare people. They have been dominate for almost 2 decades, they've earned the separation from the pack.

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[SackExchange]

You're splitting hairs. The Patsies may have a marginally better schedule, but it is better. Your win totals are irrelevant as everyones schedulr is based on last season. And the Patsies beating 4 winning teams is a huge difference between us and them. Beating 4 winning teams in a season that only has 16 games is huge. When the Jets can start consistently beating teams they should beat like Buffalo and Miami, then we could make a case to say we are on an even par with NE. Right now, we just beat a team with a winning record. That's a big step in the right direction. But first things first. Lets see how this team handles an entire season with a playoff team schedule and then we'll also have statistics to back it up.

It's not splitting hairs when the margin is so small. The margin between schedules does matter.

And again, the best win the Pats have is against a 10-win team, the Jets. The Jets have a win against a 12-win team, the Pats. But if you want to give beating the Skins or Texans the same credence as beating the Patriots, that's your business.

 

[HYATT™]

It's not splitting hairs when the margin is so small. The margin between schedules does matter.

And again, the best win the Pats have is against a 10-win team, the Jets. The Jets have a win against a 12-win team, the Pats. But if you want to give beating the Skins or Texans the same credence as beating the Patriots, that's your business.

Ahem.
The Cheats beat the 10 wins Jets while THEY were HEALTHY & the Jets were still finding their offense.
The Jets beat a severely offensively depleted 12 wins NE team, AFTER the Jets had found their FitzMagic.

Timing matters, immensely, which is why any system that relies only on combined wins and losses cannot hope to accurately reflect the Strength of a Schedule as it was played AT THE TIMES it was played.