Every year, I publish a color-coded version of the NFL schedule the night it is released. This year, things were delayed a bit, but it’s ready now. [continue reading…]
On Monday, I posted the implied SRS ratings from the Vegas lines released last week covering the first 240 games of the season. And, as discussed, the Oakland Raiders have the toughest schedule in the league, by virtue of competing in the AFC West with two elite teams, and facing the tough AFC South and NFC North Divisions. The table below shows each team’s SOS for all 16 games in 2018:
| Rk | Team | SOS | Division | Opp Divisions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oakland Raiders | 0.9 | AFC West | AFCS; NFCN |
| 2 | Denver Broncos | 0.7 | AFC West | AFCS; NFCN |
| 3 | Houston Texans | 0.6 | AFC South | AFCW; NFCS |
| 4 | Atlanta Falcons | 0.6 | NFC South | NFCW; AFCS |
| 5 | Chicago Bears | 0.5 | NFC North | NFCNE; AFCW |
| 6 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 0.5 | NFC South | NFCW; AFCS |
| 7 | Arizona Cardinals | 0.4 | NFC West | NFCS; AFCN |
| 8 | Tennessee Titans | 0.4 | AFC South | AFCW; NFCS |
| 9 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 0.4 | AFC South | AFCW; NFCS |
| 10 | Minnesota Vikings | 0.3 | NFC North | NFCNE; AFCW |
| 11 | Los Angeles Chargers | 0.3 | AFC West | AFCS; NFCN |
| 12 | Detroit Lions | 0.2 | NFC North | NFCNE; AFCW |
| 13 | Kansas City Chiefs | 0.2 | AFC West | AFCS; NFCN |
| 14 | Carolina Panthers | 0.1 | NFC South | NFCW; AFCS |
| 15 | Seattle Seahawks | 0.1 | NFC West | NFCS; AFCN |
| 16 | San Francisco 49ers | 0.1 | NFC West | NFCS; AFCN |
| 17 | Green Bay Packers | 0.1 | NFC North | NFCNE; AFCW |
| 18 | Miami Dolphins | 0 | AFC East | AFCN; NFCE |
| 19 | New Orleans Saints | 0 | NFC South | NFCW; AFCS |
| 20 | Indianapolis Colts | -0.1 | AFC South | AFCW; NFCS |
| 21 | Dallas Cowboys | -0.1 | NFC East | NFCN; AFCE |
| 22 | Los Angeles Rams | -0.1 | NFC West | NFCS; AFCN |
| 23 | Washington Redskins | -0.2 | NFC East | NFCN; AFCE |
| 24 | Baltimore Ravens | -0.2 | AFC North | AFCE; NFCW |
| 25 | Pittsburgh Steelers | -0.4 | AFC North | AFCE; NFCW |
| 26 | Cincinnati Bengals | -0.4 | AFC North | AFCE; NFCW |
| 27 | New York Giants | -0.6 | NFC East | NFCN; AFCE |
| 28 | Philadelphia Eagles | -0.7 | NFC East | NFCN; AFCE |
| 29 | Buffalo Bills | -0.7 | AFC East | AFCN; NFCE |
| 30 | Cleveland Browns | -0.7 | AFC North | AFCE; NFCW |
| 31 | New York Jets | -0.9 | AFC East | AFCN; NFCE |
| 32 | New England Patriots | -1.3 | AFC East | AFCN; NFCE |
Yesterday, I posted the implied SRS ratings from the Vegas lines released this weekend covering the first 240 games of the season. This is one of my favorite exercises of the year — the Vegas ratings are a great tool to use a starting point for all sorts of projections — so I’ve decided to turn this into a two-part post.
Vegas does not include week 17 point spreads, but we can generate them based on the ratings we have now generated. And we can also perform a much more substantive strength of schedule calculation than the one you typically see. This year, the Arizona Cardinals have the toughest schedule in the league. The table below shows each team’s SOS for all 16 games in 2018:
| Rk | Team | SOS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arizona Cardinals | 0.74 |
| 2 | Kansas City Chiefs | 0.44 |
| 3 | Seattle Seahawks | 0.43 |
| 4 | Washington Redskins | 0.40 |
| 5 | Detroit Lions | 0.40 |
| 6 | New York Giants | 0.29 |
| 7 | Cleveland Browns | 0.29 |
| 8 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 0.27 |
| 9 | Los Angeles Rams | 0.27 |
| 10 | New Orleans Saints | 0.22 |
| 11 | Chicago Bears | 0.21 |
| 12 | Buffalo Bills | 0.19 |
| 13 | Philadelphia Eagles | 0.11 |
| 14 | Minnesota Vikings | 0.10 |
| 15 | Indianapolis Colts | 0.00 |
| 16 | Carolina Panthers | -0.03 |
| 17 | Miami Dolphins | -0.08 |
| 18 | Denver Broncos | -0.08 |
| 19 | San Francisco 49ers | -0.08 |
| 20 | Dallas Cowboys | -0.09 |
| 21 | New York Jets | -0.12 |
| 22 | Tennessee Titans | -0.13 |
| 23 | Pittsburgh Steelers | -0.15 |
| 24 | Atlanta Falcons | -0.16 |
| 25 | Cincinnati Bengals | -0.18 |
| 26 | Jacksonville Jaguars | -0.27 |
| 27 | Green Bay Packers | -0.28 |
| 28 | Baltimore Ravens | -0.35 |
| 29 | Los Angeles Chargers | -0.40 |
| 30 | Oakland Raiders | -0.44 |
| 31 | New England Patriots | -0.71 |
| 32 | Houston Texans | -0.79 |
Arizona’s road schedule is particularly brutal: the Cardinals are 6.5 point underdogs (yes, in large part because the Cardinals are expected to be bad) in every game on the road this year. [1]Aand while there’s no line out for the week 17 game in Seattle, the implied ratings tell us that the spread would probably be Seattle -6.5 or Seattle -7. In addition to tough road games against the Seahawks, Rams, and 49ers, Arizona has to visit the Chargers, Chiefs, Falcons, Packers, and Vikings!
Meanwhile, the Texans and Patriots have the two easiest schedules in the NFL. Both teams get the Jets, Dolphins, Bills, and Colts — six for New England, four for Houston of course — while the Texans also get home games against the Browns and Giants. In addition, the Patriots have just five games against top-14 teams, while the Texans have just four games against top-12 teams.
Oh, and don’t pay any attention to articles that claim that the Packers have the hardest schedule in the NFL in 2018. Yes, Green Bay’s opponents this year won 138 games in 2017, the most of any slate of opponents. But that includes games a bunch of games against teams who are expected to be worse than their 2017 record, like the 8-8 Cardinals, the 9-7 Bills, the 7-9 Redskins, and two games each against the 9-7 Lions (21st in the SRS) and 13-3 Vikings (3rd in the SRS). Green Bay’s schedule is actually easier than average — the Packers are road dogs to the Patriots, Rams, and Vikings, but are otherwise favored in every other game (it helps, of course, that the Packers are expected to be very good). Only six of the team’s 16 games are against teams with a positive SRS. [continue reading…]
References
| ↑1 | Aand while there’s no line out for the week 17 game in Seattle, the implied ratings tell us that the spread would probably be Seattle -6.5 or Seattle -7. |
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The color-coded schedule is back!
Download the Excel file here
Some notes:
As usual, the games are color-coded based on time: Thursday (the Thanksgiving slate is week 12, with Detroit/Chicago as the early game, Dallas/Washington in the afternoon, and Atlanta/New Orleans at night) games are in light red, Saturday games are in gray, Sunday games at 1PM have no color, Sunday afternoon games are in orange, Sunday night games are in green, and Monday night games are in blue.
There are four international games: in week 6, the Seahawks and Raiders (as the home team) play in London at 1PM Eastern. In weeks 7 and 8, the Titans and Chargers (home team) and then Eagles and Jaguars (home team) play in London at 9:30 AM on the east coast. In week 11, the Chiefs and Rams (home team) play in Mexico City on Monday Night Football. That game is color-coded in blue for Monday Night, but with yellow font for international. Yes, my schedule grid has an easter egg.
There are 17 MNF games. In week 1, the Jets and Lions are the early Monday Night game at 7:10, with the Rams and Raiders kicking off that night at 10:20. There is no Monday Night game in week 17.
There are two Saturday games, both in week 15: the Texans at the Jets and the Browns at the Broncos. No times have been set just yet. In addition, there will be two games on Saturday in week 16, but those will be announced during the season.
The AFC West may be the most competitive division in the NFL. The Broncos and Chargers both have realistic playoff aspirations in 2017, but most observers would still rank the Raiders and Chiefs as the top two teams in the division. But if Oakland is going to win the division, it’s likely going to have to do it by getting an early lead; for the Chiefs, they just need to not fall out of the race before Thanksgiving, because Kansas City should be able to make up ground late. Why? Because while Kansas City and Oakland have similar schedules (the Chiefs draw Houston and Pittsburgh in the two variable games, while the Raiders get the Titans and Ravens), the Chiefs schedule is frontloaded (in terms of difficult games) while Oakland’s schedule is backloaded.
In the first six weeks, the Raiders get the Jets, Ravens, and Chargers at home, along with road games against the Titans, Redskins, and Broncos. Oakland should be able to get off to a 4-2 or 5-1 start against that schedule. The Patriots game comes in week 11 (and it’s a “home” game in Mexico City), but it’s the final four weeks that are scary: Oakland goes to Kansas City and hosts Dallas (on SNF) in weeks 14 and 15, before finishing with road games in Philadelphia (on Monday Night Football) and against the Chargers. A 2-2 mark would be more than holding serve.
Kansas City opens in New England on Thursday night, as tough a game as there is on any schedule. And nearly all the “easy” games for Kansas City come in the final six weeks. The Chiefs host Buffalo at the end of November and face the Jets the following week. The last four games are three home games — the Raiders, Chargers (on Saturday night), and Dolphins — and the final game is in Denver. Kansas City can realistic hope for a 5-1 finish to streak into the playoffs, so the Chiefs just need to get to 5-5 through ten games.
A similar disparity exists in the AFC South: all of those teams have easy schedules (more on this below). But one team with a very favorable early season schedule is the Colts, who… just might need it given the uncertain health status of Andrew Luck. The Colts open up with a road game against the Rams, followed by home games against Arizona and Cleveland. Indianapolis also hosts the 49ers and Jaguars in the team’s first seven games. The Titans have the second easiest schedule in the league, but it’s also really easy late. Tennessee’s December slate? Home for Houston, at Arizona, at San Francisco, home for the Rams, and home for the Jaguars. The Titans are in position to ride a late-season winning streak into the playoffs.
I went ahead and created my own team ratings. You may disagree with them slightly, but the only reason I generated them was to generate SOS ratings. So even if you disagree with some of the ratings, it shouldn’t impact each team’s SOS that much. The ratings below represent how many points each team would beat an average NFL team by on a neutral field. [continue reading…]
Today at 538, a look at which teams have front-loaded (the Jets) and back-loaded (the Ravens) schedules. The methodology will be familiar to regular readers: I created implied NFL ratings based on Vegas point spreads, and then calculated general and then weighted strength of schedule ratings. The weight, of course, was based on how late in the season a particular game occurred.
You can read the article here.
In week 5, Carolina has a bye.
In week 10, Arizona has a bye.
In week 11, San Francisco has a bye.
And in week 12, Pittsburgh has a bye.
And each of those teams, in the week following that bye, play the Seahawks. That gives Seattle a league-high four opponents in 2015 coming off of their bye week. In addition, the Seahawks play the Rams in week 16, when St. Louis will be coming off of ten days’ rest, having played on Thursday Night Football against the Bucs in week 15. You can view the full schedule here.
There is one saving grace for the Seahawks: all five games take place in the friendly confines of CenturyLink Field. Is that a coincidence? Probably not, although don’t expect Seahawks fans to give the NFL the benefit of the doubt here.
Playing four opponents off of a bye is a lot (tho not unheard of). In fact, only one other team has more than two such games, and that’s Washington. In weeks 5, 6, and 11, the Jets, Bucs, and Giants have their respective byes. And those teams are Washington’s opponents in weeks 6, 7, and 12 (the Jets game is on the road; the other two are home games).
In week 8, New England plays on Thursday Night Football, and week 12 is Thanksgiving, when the Dallas annually plays. The Patriots and Cowboys play Washington in weeks 9 and 13, respectively, giving New England and Dallas extra rest before their Washington game, too. [1]One might argue that in New England’s case, this is canceled out by the fact that Washington has a week 8 bye, so the Patriots get no advantage here. On the other hand, every team gets a bye, … Continue reading
Seattle and Washington are the only teams in 2015 that play five games against teams coming off of extra rest. On the other hand, we have Tampa Bay and Carolina. Neither the Bucs nor the Panthers play a single opponent coming off of extra rest in 2015! Carolina has its bye before a trip to Seattle and a Thursday game (Thanksgiving) before a trip to New Orleans, so the extra rest on the team side (rather than the opponent side) could come in handy. Tampa Bay travels to Washington after its bye and hosts the Bears after the Thursday night game against the Seahawks, and well, the Bucs could use all the help they can get. [continue reading…]
References
| ↑1 | One might argue that in New England’s case, this is canceled out by the fact that Washington has a week 8 bye, so the Patriots get no advantage here. On the other hand, every team gets a bye, so if Washington’s one bye is neutralized, that appears to cancel out the, uh, canceling out. |
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I have created a wallet-sized color copy of the 2013 NFL Schedule, which you can download here:
That Excel file also contains a full page color copy of the schedule, along with black and white wallet-sized and full page size schedules. On the wallet-sized photos, the line between weeks 8 and 9 has been enlarged — that is where you want to fold the paper in half.
If you don’t like downloading Excel files, you can just bookmark this page. If you have an iPhone, point your web browser to that page, and then hit your power and home button at the same time to take a photo. It’s been formatted to fit that screen will enable you have always carry the schedule on your phone.
