Thread: Who will win Superbowl 51?

Originally Posted by weazel

I was hoping someone would post the "strength of schedule" from the prior season, those don't mean shit as teams are different each and every season.

They played 2 legitimate playoff teams and lost to one of them, congrats. Please don't counter with "Miami was a playoff team" because they were worse than half the teams in the league but because they play in the same cake walk division the Pats do, they made it in.


EDIT - I take it all back, looking at the schedule, it was weak, but it just made me realized that 80% of the teams in this league are horrible. They better never expand the playoffs.

Agreed, 80% of the league is garbage, or maybe 70 but yeah

Originally Posted by weazel

I was hoping someone would post the "strength of schedule" from the prior season, those don't mean shit as teams are different each and every season.

They played 2 legitimate playoff teams and lost to one of them, congrats. Please don't counter with "Miami was a playoff team" because they were worse than half the teams in the league but because they play in the same cake walk division the Pats do, they made it in.


EDIT - I take it all back, looking at the schedule, it was weak, but it just made me realized that 80% of the teams in this league are horrible. They better never expand the playoffs.

Pro-football-reference has summary stats about strength of schedule.

For example, the average quality of the Patriots opponents this season was -2.7 and the next softest schedule was the Arizona Cardinals at -1.9. Broncos strength of schedule was 1.8, highest in the league.

Originally Posted by Hawgdriver

Pro-football-reference has summary stats about strength of schedule.

For example, the average quality of the Patriots opponents this season was -2.7 and the next softest schedule was the Arizona Cardinals at -1.9. Broncos strength of schedule was 1.8, highest in the league.

Yeah, been thinking about that a while: 5 of our 7 losses were to playoff teams (6 if we count Tennessee losing its division on tiebreaks.)

weazel's right they shouldn't expand the playoffs though: The talent's so diluted we have the "parity" of mediocrity. What they ought to do is REDUCE the number of teams, and go back to the 6X5 format where division winners skip Wildcard Weekend while the 4 best also-rans compete for the final spot in the REAL playoffs. It's inaccurate to call the second round "the divisional round" when half the division winners ALREADY played a postseason game just to get there.

Never happen though, because owners would lose 16 games of regular season broadcast and stadium revenue, which would just be unconscionable. #PlayerSafety

Originally Posted by Hawgdriver

Pro-football-reference has summary stats about strength of schedule.

For example, the average quality of the Patriots opponents this season was -2.7 and the next softest schedule was the Arizona Cardinals at -1.9. Broncos strength of schedule was 1.8, highest in the league.

And yet we still won 9 games...Imagine what we'd have done with the patriots schedule.

That's hilarious. . . and Ocho-cinco-esque.