Friday, October 9, 2009

NFL Strength Of Remaining Schedule, Q1

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Strength of remaining schedule, following week 4
Read this for a description of APR

How this was computed:

  1. For each team, a list of teams was created, one for each opponent in all unplayed games (which means some division opponents are listed twice).

  2. In this version, each team is replaced with its Week 4 Power Index value.

  3. Each team's list of power index values are averaged together, giving something that hopefully represents the overall difficulty of the remaining schedule.

As usual, higher index values represent better teams, so a higher value here means a more difficult schedule.

RankTeamW-LStrength of
Schedule
1St. Louis Rams0-42.8959
2Carolina Panthers0-32.7617
3Tampa Bay Buccaneers0-42.7390
4Houston Texans2-22.6898
5Tennessee Titans0-42.6456
6Miami Dolphins1-32.5771
7Baltimore Ravens3-12.5708
8Chicago Bears3-12.4990
9New England Patriots3-12.4864
10Buffalo Bills1-32.4365
11New York Giants4-02.4102
12Detroit Lions1-32.3797
13Atlanta Falcons2-12.3451
14San Francisco 49ers3-12.2481
15Indianapolis Colts4-02.2214
16New York Jets3-12.1956
17Jacksonville Jaguars2-22.1489
18Seattle Seahawks1-32.1433
19Cincinnati Bengals3-12.1232
20Oakland Raiders1-32.1072
21Green Bay Packers2-22.0912
22Washington Redskins2-22.0816
23Minnesota Vikings4-02.0599
24Kansas City Chiefs0-42.0486
25Pittsburgh Steelers2-22.0372
26Denver Broncos4-02.0276
27Cleveland Browns0-42.0178
28Dallas Cowboys2-21.9452
29Philadelphia Eagles2-11.8680
30Arizona Cardinals1-21.7541
31San Diego Chargers2-21.6990
32New Orleans Saints4-01.5663

Comments:

  • No love for the Rams. They've got the Vikings, Colts, Saints, Cardinals (twice) and 49ers coming up. The good news (such as it is) is they've got some bottom-10 teams to play, like the Seahawks, Lions, and Titans(!), and so have at least a moderate chance of avoiding a winless season.

  • With a 4-0 start, and a very easy remaining schedule, is it too soon to start talking about a bye week for the Saints? (Yeah, probably.)

  • The Cardinals also have an easy schedule; the 49ers have some work to do before they can claim the NFC West crown.

  • The Panthers and Buccaneers can't both go winless this season (assuming they don't both finish 0-14-2).

I'll take a look at this again after weeks 8 and 12.