Sorry, but you did in fact have an easy schedule.
Chargers, Chiefs, Broncos, Panthers, and Patriots had the 5 easiest thus far this season. Barnwell's word is worth quite a bit when it comes to advanced metrics.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9924624/bill-barnwell-week-9
Chain of Strength
In fact, there's a lot more to be said about how drastically some teams' schedules are about to change. I'll be spending a lot of time this week reviewing things at the halfway point of this NFL campaign, but now seems like a good time to start by considering how strength of schedule has affected the first half of the season. More importantly, we'll also get to find out which teams will face the league's easiest and toughest slates during the run-in to the playoffs.
Skip ahead a paragraph if you really don't care about the methodology. Hey, people who stuck around. You're the readers I really like. Those people who skipped ahead are poseurs. You're looking really handsome/pretty today! Did you do something to your hair? Anyway, I generally don't like using win-loss record for strength of schedule for a number of reasons, but mainly because it's too broad of a measure of performance. Point differential is better, but I also don't want to include the performance of a team in that given game as part of the strength of schedule calculations, because that's circular logic. So for each game played by each team, I calculated their opposition's Pythagorean winning percentage in points scored and points allowed in all their other games from the season. Then I used each team's average opposition Pythagorean winning percentage as the measure of their strength of schedule. OK?
Phew. Nice to have you guys back. Have you done something to your hair? Never mind. So, let's start with the first half of the season. As it turns out, the Panthers faced the third-easiest schedule in football to start the season; their average opponent had a Pythagorean expected winning percentage of .420, roughly that of a 6.7-win team over the course of a 16-game season. The only teams with easier schedules were, as you might expect, the Chiefs (.392) and the Chargers (.411). The Patriots (.438) and Broncos (.451) rounded out the top five. Those five teams are a combined 32-10.
The teams with the five hardest schedules? They're a combined 11-30. Bummer. Last night's hard-luck losers have faced the toughest schedule in football; the 2-6 Texans have faced teams playing .598 football, roughly the equivalent of a 9.6-win team every week. They've already faced the Seahawks, 49ers, Colts, and Chiefs, who might be four of the five best teams in football. (They also lost three of those four games by a combined seven points.) Behind them are the Bills (.592), Giants (.588), Cardinals (.577), and Jaguars (.570).
