sprocketboy
Surrounded by Donkey Fans
The best line was about how easy the Patriots' schedule has been. I can only shudder to think at the horror of what we'd be facing if the 4-1 Patriots had met up with juggernauts like the Rams, Seahawks, Jaguars, and Raiders.
Seriously. Are they that stupid?
Let's look at the numbers:
Bengals (2-3) W
Jets (5-1) L
Bills (0-5) W
Dolphins (3-2) W
Ravens (4-2) W
When calculating absolute Strength-of-Schedule (SOS) and Strength-of-Victory (SOV), you have to remember to adjust your opponents' records by removing the games that your team played against them. If you don't do that, you will penalize your own team's SOS/SOV rating for beating them, or reward your own team's SOS/SOV rating for losing to them. The NFL does not typically bother with this adjustment in their own calculations, because they only use SOS and SOV to break ties between teams with identical records. In that case, the adjustment will be the same between all tied teams, which will not affect the relative SOS or SOV comparison between those tied teams.
SOS: Patriots' opponents so far this year are 14-13 overall, which means they are 13-9 when playing teams not named the Patriots.
SOV: The opponents that the Patriots beat are 9-12 overall, which means they are 9-8 when playing teams not named the Patriots.
So, both absolute SOS and absolute SOV are better than .500. Yeah, that's a weak schedule. WTF?