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The Real Strength of Schedule

Adjusted to team's projected 2013 win totals

Trouble with most Strength of Schedule charts is they're based on what teams did last year. But teams change. So what do those figures look like when you instead use how teams are supposed to do this year? Ian Allan explores.

For this chart, I used the over-under win totals at one of the Vegas football line websites. Mostly, anyway. After plugging in the numbers, I noticed that they didn't add up properly (too many wins), and some of them just looked hopelessly out of whack, so I did a little tweaking.

Most notably, the Raiders were projected to win 6 games, and the Jets were at 6.5. That just isn't going to happen. Those teams play each other, so there's one win there, but they do not have another 11 wins in them. That's just ridiculous.

For a half dozen other teams, I picked off a win or a half win to make the numbers add up properly.

Starting numbers are as follows ...

Over-Under Win Totals For Each Team
Denver11
New England11
San Francisco11
Seattle10.5
Houston10.5
Green Bay10.5
Atlanta10
New Orleans9
NY Giants9
Pittsburgh9
Cincinnati8.5
Chicago8.5
Baltimore8.5
Dallas8.5
Indianapolis8.5
Washington8.5
Detroit8
St. Louis7.5
Miami7.5
Minnesota7.5
Kansas City7.5
Philadelphia7.5
Tampa Bay7
Carolina7
San Diego6.5
Buffalo6.5
Tennessee6.5
Cleveland5.5
Arizona5.5
Jacksonville5
NY Jets4.5
Oakland4

Now, moving onto the meat -- the point of what we were doing -- now let's backload those numbers into the 2013 schedule. That shows which teams should have the easiest schedules.

And the winners are? Kansas City, Denver and Pittsburgh. Those are the teams projecting to be helped along the most by the schedules they'll play.

Arizona, Minnesota, St. Louis and Washington look like the teams that will be hurt -- they're tending to play hard schedules.

ADJUSTED STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE (over/under wins)
TeamWLTPct
Kansas City1191370.465
Denver1191361.467
Pittsburgh1191361.467
New England1231330.480
Buffalo1231330.480
Houston1231330.480
Miami1231321.482
Indianapolis1231321.482
Cincinnati1251310.488
NY Jets1251310.488
San Diego1251310.488
Tennessee1251310.488
Jacksonville1261291.494
Oakland1271281.498
Philadelphia1281280.500
Seattle1281280.500
Cleveland1281271.502
Atlanta1291270.504
New Orleans1291270.504
San Francisco1291261.506
Dallas1301260.508
NY Giants1301260.508
Detroit1301251.510
Baltimore1311241.514
Tampa Bay1311241.514
Carolina1321231.518
Chicago1331221.521
Green Bay1341220.523
Washington1341211.525
St. Louis1341211.525
Minnesota1361191.533
Arizona1371190.535

--Ian Allan

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