NFL Handicapping - Wild Card Round Schedule Analysis

Due to the NFL's scheduling system, not all playoff-worthy records are created equal. For example, the NFC and AFC West teams had awful strengths of schedule this year, primarily because they have to factor in playing each other.Strength of schedule (SOS) is the average winning percentage of all sixteen teams played. This year, the 32 teams had SOSs ranging from .447 (San Francisco) to .572 (Cleveland). For perspective, this means the average San Francisco opponent went 7-9 and the average Cleveland opponent went 9-7.SOS is only useful as a benchmark in analyzing how well a team actually performed. Obviously, a team cannot beat or lose to teams that aren't on the schedule. To know what it means, it is important to look at two other numbers: Strength of Victory (SOV) and Strength of Defeat (SOD). Just as you probably guessed, SOV is the average winning percentage of the teams a team defeated, and SOD is the average winning percentage of the teams that beat a team.Ranked from ...