Phil Steele's Daily Blog - Wednesday July 22nd

I continue to do my onslaught of radio shows which occupies a good portion of my days during the end of July. As you know I’ve always spent about 90% of my time on college football but I am very excited about our NFL Magazine. I have the same desire to mirror my success of being college footballs “most accurate” magazine by becoming the most accurate NFL Magazine as well. In this years magazine (which is now available) I project each of the division races with records. I want to share just how much work and research goes into making these forecasts.

I’ve posted several articles on my blog including: repeating as a division champ, the YPP and how the YPG can help you analyze a teams fortunes. These are just part of the research I do annually to make my predictions. The schedule is of course an important part of analyzing the upcoming season. Below I list the final strength of schedule for the 2008 season. I also list the NFL’s ranking of this years schedule based on LY’s win % but then also give you my strength of schedule based on this years talent.

First let me point out the biggest flaws in the NFL’s rankings. They rank New England as the #3 schedule based on having to play Miami twice as they finished 11-5 and also playing the NY Jets twice who finished 9-7 with Brett Favre and will now go with a rookie. Based on this year’s talent I have them facing the #20 schedule. On the flip side the NFL had Detroit playing the #21 schedule but with the improvement of the entire NFC North we rank them as having the 10th toughest schedule.

Let me share I few interesting notes after analyzing the schedule the last few years.. The NFL now schedules divisions to face each other. Therefore even though New England finished 16-0 in 2007 and Miami finished 1-15 they both played their own division, the NFC West and the AFC West giving them only 2 different opponents. I wanted to see how a team did playing a much easier or more difficult schedule based on their final strength of schedule versus my upcoming strength of schedule. Here are some numbers over the past three seasons when I compared the previous year’s final rank to this years projected strength of schedule.

Teams that had an easier schedule by 10 or more spots and had 7 or fewer wins:
13-1-1 93%
Meaning that 13 teams took advantage of the easier schedule and improved.
This years teams are: Green Bay, Seattle, Cleveland and Cincinnati

Teams that had a tougher schedule of 14 or more spots and had over 9 wins:
1-9 90%
Meaning that 9 of 10 teams had fewer wins with the tougher schedule.
This years teams are: Tennessee, Atlanta and Miami.

Make sure to pick up Phil Steele’s NFL Preview or order here on-line when you’re looking at the division forecast think about how this article is only 5% of what I put into my forecasts.