Strength of Schedule

[MTRamsFan]

Based upon 2017, our 2018 schedule is tied for 5th for the hardest schedule. Here is the video, with the Rams at the 1:00 mark.

Also, of the Top 18 "Must See Games" for the 2018 season, we are in 4 of them.

16) Los Angeles Rams at Denver Broncos
14) Los Angeles Chargers at Los Angeles Rams
8) Los Angeles Rams at New Orleans Saints
1) Philadelphia Eagles at Los Angeles Rams

Here is the link to the article.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap30...games-of-the-2018-season-the-mustsee-matchups

 

[IowaRam]

they seem to have the harder teams at home , I'm just not sure thats a good thing

 

[OC_Ram]

how did Bronco's and Charger's make the "must see" list?

 

[IowaRam]

how did Bronco's and Charger's make the "must see" list?

Chargers probably because it's LA vs LA

not sure about Denver

 

[Mackeyser]

they seem to have the harder teams at home , I'm just not sure thats a good thing

depends on when they are. I'd prefer them later in the season when the turf is in better shape.

Early in the season, only Washington's FedEx field. About which, Obi Wan said...

FedEx field, you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...and that's just the groundskeepers!

 

[yrba1]

how did Bronco's and Charger's make the "must see" list?

Jeff Fisher can't hurt us anymore

 

[IowaRam]

depends on when they are. I'd prefer them later in the season when the turf is in better shape.

Early in the season, only Washington's FedEx field. About which, Obi Wan said...

FedEx field, you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...and that's just the groundskeepers!

Just meant the Rams were like 4-4 at home and 7-1 on the road , or summtin like that

 

[OldSchool]

how did Bronco's and Charger's make the "must see" list?

Talib and Case vs their old teams most likely pushed it up their list.

 

[HX76]

And Wade Phillips going back to Denver?

 

[Flint]

Everyone gets all concerned about strength of schedule this time of year but we played the vikes saints and eagles last year too. As long as we take care of the division the rest will take care of itself.

 

[bubbaramfan]

Rams Vikings should be included

 

[dang]

Why wouldn’t the NFL just average the 2017 winning percentages of each teams 2018 opponents. Then rank strength of schedule by the resulting winning percentages?

 

[wolfdogg]

Everyone gets all concerned about strength of schedule this time of year but we played the vikes saints and eagles last year too. As long as we take care of the division the rest will take care of itself.

Exactly. In 2016 the Vikings saints and eagles finished 3rd or last in their divisions making our 2017 strength of schedule weaker, yet those were 3 of the toughest games for the rams, resulting in 2 losses and a close finish against division winners.

 

[Mackeyser]

Why wouldn’t the NFL just average the 2017 winning percentages of each teams 2018 opponents. Then rank strength of schedule by the resulting winning percentages?

The current method is just flawed.

I made a proposal in the past. I’ll see if I can find it.

Here it is. It’s kinda long but beats remembering it from scratch.

1. maintain that the current iteration of SoS is meaningless.
   
   Case in point: Beating the Chiefs in week 1-5 would have meant MUCH more than beating them in week 10.
   
   I maintain that a meaningful SoS would be like this.
   
   Week 1: no SoS.
   
   Week 2: Week 1 SoS only. No other games including Week 2 are to be considered. (to consider one's own games is to skew the record. Winning teams would be penalized and losing teams would be given more benefit)
   
   Week 3: Week 1-2 only. No other games including Week 3 are to be considered.
   
   And so on...
   
   Thus, it wouldn't matter if you played anopponent in week 2 that went 15-1 if they'd lost their first game. Your SoS for thatopponent would be 0-1. That's it.
   
   Teams would get NO credit for teams that win after they played, nor would they be penalizedfor teams that lose after they played.
   
   The Eagles and Pats are being penalized because the Chiefs have lost their way afterlooking unstoppable in the first 5 weeks.
   
   Thus instead of having 192 games that count (12 opponents x 16 games), it would be thesum of 1-15, or 120 games total and thosewould ONLY precede the contests for eachopponent. Then we have to remove divisional games. That makes it 114. The reason it's 114 (or 113 if the last game is a divisional game) is that divisonal opponents are still countedtwice with this new metric (since their improvement or decline matters), but theactual games a team played against that divisional opponent would NOT be counted.
   
   Such a system would be far more impartialand relevant to how a team is performing week to week across a season.
   
   Moreover, a further improvement would be to weight up to 4 immediately preceding games (I say up to because obviously, that can'thappen before week 5). That would better illustrate how a team is performing in thatmoment and better capture sustained success or failure.
   
   Moreover, when it comes to using SoS for conference schedules, I think yet anotherimprovement would be to adjust for how a conference performs in non-divisional games. For example, the Pats SoS would be adjusted downward slightly most years because theAFC East in many years has been pretty bad.
   
   The current system is so basic and creates such bias...
   
   What kills me is that a programmer could put together the algorithm for ALL of these parameters probably in less than a day (the UI and other issues would or could take longer)
   
   I won't speculate on why they continue to use such a biased and basic system. If I hadmoney or was a programmer, I'd just have the tool made and then promote the crap out of it because unlike DVR... my "Adjusted Strength of Schedule" ...well... I'd have to figure another name because no-one wants to have thetoughest "ASS" or be known to beat the softest "ASS"... and we all know fans and pundits wouldn't stick with ASOS... maybe Modified Strength of Schedule... yeah... that's better...
   
   Anyway, the current stat that is SoS has so many flaws that to me, it's barely a useful tool. It COULD be useful, but it isn't very much at this time the way it's compiled and used.

 

[dieterbrock]

Strength of schedule is fairly irrelevant. Only way to make any sense of it, is after the season. Its an interpretive stat anyways.

 

[RhodyRams]

the SOS gets recalculated thru the course of the year

 

[LACHAMP46]

IDK.....5th in SoS is 5th in SoS....

I think we'll get to see where we stand in 2018 rather quickly.

 

[Mackeyser]

I'm selfishly bumping for the idea I posted earlier.

I wish I had the time to manually calculate the SoS for each team, but I don't.

I might do it this year as a trial project. If I do it each week, it's not so bad.