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the 2014/2015 nfl thread v. R U RDY 4 SUM FOOTBAW?

I didn't say teams that made the 2014 playoff teams. I said games against teams that made the 2014 playoffs. There's a significant and obvious difference.

The Bills play 5. The Patriots play 4. That makes sense to you for a team that went 9-7 and missed the playoffs and a team that won the Superbowl? This has nothing to do with who the Bills play and everything to do with who the Patriots play.

Let it sink in for a minute. The team that won the Superbowl last year is only playing 4 games out of 16 against teams that even made the playoffs last year. How you could not see how FUCKED that is?

since you play more games against teams in your own conference, wouldn't it be natural for a team that made the playoffs to play more games against teams that didn't make the playoffs?
 
No. That reasoning doesn't even stand when you're talking about divisions let alone conference. 3-out-of-4 teams in the AFC North made the playoffs last season.

The easiest comparison is the team that did the second best in the league last season, the Seahawks. They play 9 games against teams that made the playoffs last season. More than double the Patriots.
 
ah, wow. must be punishment for those deflated balls and those illegal "ineligible receiver" plays.
 
And then explain to me why the defending Superbowl Champions should have an easier schedule than a team that has has 1 winning season in a decade.
i think it's lame to expect your team to be handed an easy schedule on a plate because they suck so much. i think a stronger statement - a winning statement - is to go out and win these games and prove you deserve your spot in the playoffs.

football fans are funny. when your (ones) team get beat by a team they're expected to win against, it's "on any given sunday". but when one is criticising other teams it's all about how cake their schedule is.

looking at the pats schedule last season, they actually did relatively poorly against teams you would have considered weaker opponents at the start of that season:

lost to the dolphins
beat the raiders by only 7 points
beat the jets by only 2 points
beat the jets by only 1 point
lost to the bills

then they crushed their stronger opponents:

beat the bengals by 26 points
beat the broncos by 22 points
beat the colts by 22 points

last season, the patriots had the 10th hardest schedule using the official nfl strength of schedule rankings and they won their division and the superbowl...

strength of schedule is such a distraction as it assumes that teams will be just as good this year as they were last year which is pretty unrealistic.

gm, you're starting to sound like axl - spouting emotional nonsense instead of solid analysis. you're better than this, man.

cue the usual whining about schedule strength...
again, totally called it :)

alasdair
 
further, you seem to be implying that there's some patriots fan at the nfl giving the patriots a cake schedule. the formula for determining nfl opponents is quite open: 2015 Opponents Determined.

conspiracies everywhere!

alasdair
 
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i think it's lame to expect your team to be handed an easy schedule on a plate because they suck so much. i think a stronger statement - a winning statement - is to go out and win these games and prove you deserve your spot in the playoffs.

That's a pretty clever straw man argument nestled in the rest of that post. I've said like 3 times I don't have a problem with the Bills' schedule. At all. I actually like our schedule this year. I have a problem with the cheating-ass Patriots who you seem to think are really good enough to win the past Superbowl on their own merits, and not because they're cheaters, having one of the easiest schedules int he league while their Superbowl opponents have one of the hardest LIKE THEY SHOULD.

None of it really matters though. The little things that piss me off about the Patriots are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I'm content in knowing that they'll go down in history known as cheaters and their "success" will be forever marred by that perception.

I'm pretty ok with the way things stand now. Everyone hates the Patriots because they're cheaters and all of their legitimate success in the early-to-mid 2000s will be rolled into the narrative of them being scumbags in the second half of Brady's career.

16902245-mmmain.jpg
 
patriots had the best response possible to that. they won the superbowl.

since when was the best team the most popular team? since never.

alasdair
 
further, you seem to be implying that there's some patriots fan at the nfl giving the patriots a cake schedule. the formula for determining nfl opponents is quite open: 2015 Opponents Determined.

conspiracies everywhere!

alasdair

Link broken.

Just give up defending them ali. Kick back, pop a cold one and daydream about and bask in all those amazing and utterly tainted wins.

Pat are going to nose dive to below .500 this year. Has Been Tshits.. get your has been Tshirts...
 
Once again the Bengals have one of the toughest schedules out of any other team in the NFL this year. Four prime time games though hell yeah. This is Daltons last year unless he can pull it together...
 
strength of schedule is (almost) meaningless. for example last season, going into the 2013 season, the carolina panthers had the toughest strength of schedule. after the 2013 season was over, the panthers had played the 17th most difficult schedule. the buccaneers ended up playing the most difficult schedule in 2013 but, before the season, they were projected to play the 17th hardest schedule.

last season, two teams in the top 10 with the toughest schedule were the seahawks (#6) and the patriots (#10) and they ended up in the superbowl. the titans, jags and browns all had cake schedules by the numbers and they still sucked.

sure, it's a factor but good teams find ways to win and crappy teams find ways to lose.

alasdair
 
How about schedule against teams coming off extra rest? Yet again the Bills get screwed by having played more teams coming off a BYE than any team in the league over the past 12ish years. And that's not just Bills fans digging for conspiracies. These articles were written by a non-local ESPN writer.

4. The Buffalo Bills will play three of their first five games against teams with more rest than they'll have had, a continuation of a long-term trend I noted last week.

From 2002-14, the Bills played more games against teams coming off either a bye week or a Thursday night game (29) than any other team in the NFL, a competitive imbalance the league hopes to correct with the aid of several researchers from the University at Buffalo.

The Bills' opponents in Week 2 (Patriots) and Week 4 (Giants) will have 10 days of rest following a Thursday night game. Their Week 5 opponent (Tennessee Titans) will be returning from its bye.

The Buffalo researchers also hope to minimize unbalanced concentrations of division games, which could have an inordinate impact on titles, tiebreakers and playoff seeding. The Green Bay Packers have a stretch between Weeks 2 and 9 in which they won't play an NFC North game. Then they'll have four consecutive games against division opponents. As a result, a well-timed or poorly timed injury to a key player could dramatically make an impact on the Packers' fortunes.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/166141/inside-slant-innovating-the-nfl-schedule


The Patriots? They've had to play teams coming off their BYE half as much. Add that to all the other little advantages they always seem to get over most other teams; everything from having an easier schedule to having some of the lowest amount of defensive pass interference calls against them every year for like 8 years running.

I guess it's easy to maintain a dynasty when you cheat AND the league always seems to put you in good positions to win in a million different little ways.
 
Well yeah I mean schedule and stuff like that is never going to dictate whether a team can make the playoffs or not. Like ali said good teams find a way to win and bad teams find a way to lose. But little advantages add up to increase your chances of winning. If you suck AND all the little things are working against you, you're basically fucked. For say...... 15 years or so. ;)
 
scheduling is cyclical, and done fairly in the NFL. however, some years are easier than the others. last year the Steelers had it pretty easy playing the NFC South. however, this year Pittsburgh's scheddy is BRUTAL. if the Steelers can manage even 11 wins, I will consider them a threat to the AFC Championship

that being said, the Pats do have a shockingly easy year lined up, this year

I do believe I called their home game against Pittsburgh to be their season-opener - because it was the most interesting/difficult game for New England all year

at the very least it should be a quality game to start the NFL season. I would be taking the Steelers over the Pats, but LeVeon Bell is suspended for the first 3 games... advantage: Pats
 
I'm just blowing BS about the Pats' schedule because I hate them so much and it's fun. In all honesty I think their schedule is going to be a lot harder than it appears because I think the other 3 teams in the division all got much, much better from last season. Brady is going to have to contend with 3 of the nastiest defenses in the entire league for 6 games every year now.
 
^ yep. it will be interesting to see how the pats fare. the afc division games should be fun to watch.

alasdair
 
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