Strength of Schedule – Final
Posted by Chris KolbJan 3
With the final week of the regular season in the books, calculating each team’s strength of schedule becomes a simple, but tedious task of adding up the wins/losses of each team’s opponents and dividing it by 256 (16 teams x 16 wins/losses for each).
The SOS is important for draft positioning, as it’s the first tiebreaker the NFL uses to determine where each team picks and we all know how critical that can be. Lucky for you, I’ve sat down and done the math so you can just take a quick look at where your favorite team lines up if you’re wondering where they’ll draft in April.
Bear in mind that I worked out all of these calculations tonight, and while I’m almost certain they’re all correct, I may have added up one or two wrong, so I’ll be sure to compare my list to the one the NFL releases tomorrow. But for now, enjoy and feel free to hit up the draft section for our latest mock drafts and player analysis.
Rank | Team | Win | Loss | Tie | Pct. |
1 | Miami | 143 | 113 | 0 | 0.558 |
2 | Tampa Bay | 142 | 114 | 0 | 0.554 |
3 | Tennessee | 138 | 118 | 0 | 0.539 |
4 | Carolina | 138 | 118 | 0 | 0.539 |
5 | New York Giants | 137 | 119 | 0 | 0.535 |
6 | Oakland | 135 | 121 | 0 | 0.527 |
7 | Denver | 135 | 121 | 0 | 0.527 |
8 | Detroit | 134 | 122 | 0 | 0.523 |
9 | Baltimore | 134 | 122 | 0 | 0.523 |
10 | St. Louis | 133 | 123 | 0 | 0.519 |
11 | Kansas City | 132 | 124 | 0 | 0.515 |
12 | Buffalo | 132 | 124 | 0 | 0.515 |
13 | New York Jets | 132 | 124 | 0 | 0.515 |
14 | New England | 132 | 124 | 0 | 0.515 |
15 | Cleveland | 131 | 125 | 0 | 0.512 |
16 | Houston | 129 | 127 | 0 | 0.503 |
17 | Atlanta | 129 | 127 | 0 | 0.503 |
18 | Chicago | 127 | 129 | 0 | 0.496 |
19 | Jacksonville | 127 | 129 | 0 | 0.496 |
20 | Washington | 126 | 130 | 0 | 0.492 |
21 | Cincinnati | 126 | 130 | 0 | 0.492 |
22 | Dallas | 125 | 131 | 0 | 0.488 |
23 | Pittsburgh | 125 | 131 | 0 | 0.488 |
24 | Philadelphia | 124 | 132 | 0 | 0.484 |
25 | Seattle | 122 | 134 | 0 | 0.476 |
26 | San Francisco | 122 | 134 | 0 | 0.476 |
27 | Indianapolis | 121 | 135 | 0 | 0.473 |
28 | San Diego | 116 | 140 | 0 | 0.453 |
29 | Arizona | 114 | 142 | 0 | 0.445 |
30 | Minnesota | 113 | 143 | 0 | 0.441 |
31 | Green Bay | 113 | 143 | 0 | 0.441 |
32 | New Orleans | 109 | 147 | 0 | 0.426 |
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This is interesting, but it seems a bit flawed as a measure of how great the opposition a particular team faced was. For example, given that New Orleans was 13-3, most of its opponents had an additional loss on their schedule caused by New Orleans itself. Detroit, on the other hand, gave each of its opponents an extra win. If those wins (and the two losses Detroit caused) were subtracted out, Detroit would have a SOS of exactly .5, or 18th on the table without adjusting any other teams. An adjusted table would probably look something like this (not terribly different, but for the sake of obsessing about statistics):
1 Miami .558
2 Tennessee .542
Carolina .542
4 Tampa Bay .538
New York Giants .538
6 Denver .529
Baltimore .529
8 New England .525
9 New York Jets .521
10 Oakland .517
11 Buffalo .508
Houston .508
Atlanta .508
14 Detroit .500
Kansas City .500
Cleveland .500
Cinncinnati .500
Dallas .500
19 Philadelphia .496
Indianapolis .496
21 St. Louis .492
Chicago .492
Jacksonville .492
Pittsburgh .492
25 Washington .475
San Francisco .475
27 San Diego .471
28 Seattle .463
29 Minnesota .454
30 Arizona .450
Green Bay .450
32 New Orleans .442
Note: I'm basing this on the table in the article; thus it incorporates any errors in it as well as any additional errors I may have made.