Strength of Schedule through Week 13

by mgrex03 on Dec 5, 2008 5:33 PM EST in Colts Analysis

There was a claim made earlier today that the Titans have the 4th toughest schedule in the NFL this season. I also saw this same claim over at MCM earlier in the week, complete with a link to the "2008 Strength of Schedule". However, there is one problem with these claims:

They are using last year's records.

This site has been up, presumably, since early January. The number of wins/losses for each team tipped me off, as well as the lack of a tie anywhere, so I checked it out. I figured I'd look at what the real strength of schedule for each team is, just based on Opponents Win % from 2008. This isn't perfect, and I may do a little more data analysis using Opponents Opponents Win % (that isn't a typo). I figured to go easy first.

Here's the Strength of Schedule for 2008, through Week 13:

Team	W	L	T	Win %	Team	W	L	T	Win %
Bengals	91	52	1	0.635	Bears	72	71	1	0.503
Browns	82	61	1	0.573	Patriots	72	72	0	0.500
Chiefs	81	63	0	0.563	Ravens	70	71	3	0.497
Lions	81	63	0	0.563	Texans	71	72	1	0.497
Packers	81	63	0	0.563	Steelers	66	75	3	0.469
Chargers	80	64	0	0.556	Falcons	66	77	1	0.462
Rams	79	64	1	0.552	Buccaneers	66	78	0	0.458
Seahawks	76	67	1	0.531	Cowboys	65	77	2	0.458
Colts	75	69	0	0.521	Dolphins	66	78	0	0.458
Cardinals	74	69	1	0.517	Giants	65	77	2	0.458
Jaguars	74	69	1	0.517	Broncos	65	79	0	0.451
Redskins	74	69	1	0.517	Panthers	65	79	0	0.451
Raiders	74	70	0	0.514	49ers	64	79	1	0.448
Saints	74	70	0	0.514	Jets	64	79	1	0.448
Vikings	74	70	0	0.514	Titans	58	85	1	0.406
Eagles	73	70	1	0.510	Bills	54	90	0	0.375

Some thoughts:

Our Week 14 opponent, Cincinnati, has had the toughest schedule so far this season, by 9 games, over the 2nd toughest, the Browns. That's pretty astounding. This week will close the gap by 3 games, but it still be a very tough schedule.
The most wins of any team with a tougher schedule than the Colts is 5, which is the Packers. On the flip side, the 49ers have had a fairly easy schedule, and still haven't won 5 games.
There are the Titans, sitting at 31st. And after this week, they'll creep even closer to having the easiest schedule in the league.
This list does not take into account any future games. This obviously means the Colts schedule will get easier over the next 3 weeks. I figured I should point this out now, to avoid confusion.

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