Breaking down strength of schedule by Super Bowl odds, win total, and traditional format

The NFL is releasing its 2020 regular season schedule on Thursday, with contingencies expected to be available in case there is a delay to the start of the season. For the time being, the league will release its normal 17-week schedule with September 10th the planned kickoff date.

One common discussion topic throughout the offseason is strength of schedule. Fans will argue about whether or not they have an easy or difficult schedule, with the accompanying complaining when they feel a schedule is unfairly difficult. The problem that has arisen year in and year out is the context for arguing about strength of schedule.

The most common numbers used for comparing SOS is previous year’s win percentage. We know the next year’s full list of opponents when the final regular season game ends thanks to the NFL’s formula for determining opponents. We don’t know anything else at that point, and so the easiest point of data is how every team performed in the just completed season.

However, as the offseason progresses, we get new, valuable points of data that afford us a better view of a team’s schedule. Following the Super Bowl, free agency, trades, and the draft drastically change rosters. Injuries happen that shake up depth charts. And once the schedule is released, we have a better idea of how difficult a schedule is in terms of distance teams need to travel and how many lengthy road trips or homestands a team might have.

There are two sets of numbers we can use to assess what a team’s schedule looks like that might offer more value than previous season’s win percentage: Super Bowl odds and preseason win totals, courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook. Odds are not a perfect prediction for the season, and some will be off by a long shot. But they offer a little more value in trying to look to where things are headed as opposed to where they were.

Odds are not meant to be entirely predictive. Rather, the goal is to get bets spread across the range of odds so as to limit a sportsbook’s exposure. An oddsmaker sets a win total with the hope that the betting public will bet evenly on both sides of it. The house might lose some money, but if they get even amounts on both sides of all the win totals, the house will usually do well for itself.

Below is our look at strength of schedule using the three numbers mentioned above. The win total is a simple case of adding up the win total for each of a given team’s opponents for the coming season.

The Super Bowl odds follow what One Cool Customer regularly does at Blogging The Boys. The team with the best Super Bowl odds gets 1 point, second best gets 2 points, and so forth through the end. We then add those number up for a given team’s list of opponents and divide it by 16 to come up with an average per opponent. Ours differs from Blogging The Boys because they use William Hill odds while we use DraftKings Sportsbook.

The third number is the traditional win percentage from the previous season. You can see that some win percentages are close to Super Bowl odds or the cumulative win totals. Sometimes the win percentage will accurately portend a team’s schedule, but there’s an element of luck to that given how much rosters change.

Using the two types of odds, the Atlanta Falcons have the most difficult schedule in both metrics. Under the regularly used previous season win percentage, Atlanta has the fifth most difficult schedule. Under win totals and Super Bowl odds, the Indianapolis Colts have the easiest schedule. By previous year’s win percentage, the Colts have the 16th ranked schedule. The odds line up fairly well from there, with the New England Patriots holding the most notable split between odds and win totals.

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