The 2009-2010 regular season schedule was released during primetime television on Tuesday exclusively through the NFL channel, to the dismay of many fans and the disapproval of numerous experts. There was hype, yes, but all in all this was not the monumental event the league may have been hoping for, IMO, because the list of opponents for all teams had already been publicized; the only new information to be gained from last Tuesday is the date and time of each matchup as well as which matchups (tentatively) are scheduled for night time broadcast. Having said that, hardcore fans like myself were still excited to take a look at the final skeds. Rather than reproduce it here, I'll simply note that the full schedule can most easily be found at nfl.com.
Although observations regarding strength of schedule could have been made (and were) prior to Tuesday, the release of the schedule did give rise to a new round of complaints regarding the seemingly "easy" paths given to several teams that experienced success last season, including the Steelers. Strength of schedule for 2009-2010 has been computed by numerous websites, including ESPN (see
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft09/news/story?id=4027503). The five teams that appear to have the hardest roads (based on their opponents' 2008 records) are: Miami 0.594, Carolina 0.592, New England 0.590, Atlanta 0.588, Tampa Bay 0.580. The first four are all 2008 playoff teams while Tampa Bay missed the playoffs by the narrowest of margins, so not a lot of fans are going to shed tears for these teams this next season. Yet this list does not include any of the conference championship teams. Can you guess where I'm going with this?
(drum roll) Let's look at the five teams with the "easiest roads" in the upcoming season: Chicago 0.414, Minnesota 0.420, Green Bay 0.428, Pittsburgh 0.434, Baltimore 0.438. So, the two AFC championships teams both have schedules in the bottom five based on strength of schedule. Arizona, the SB runnerup, is just out of the top five with the six-easiest schedule at 0.441.
Based on this, I can see lots of fans wondering how this could have happened. Aren't the top teams supposed have the hardest schedules the following season? Shouldn't the struggling teams be given the benefit of easier schedules? Yes, and yes. But it's not that simple.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment