Strength of Schedule's impact (1 Viewer)

[TheNext0]

How big or how little do you factor this in when ranking, projecting, and drafting. 2 years ago I relied rather heavily on it and was very successful. This past year, however, I went against what SOS was showing me and drafted Palmer/C Johnson and they struggled against many tough teams.

Does anyone know of or have access to end-of-the-season strength of schedules? I'd like to compare player performance to how tough their schedules was, to try to better understand scoring anomalies such as Culpepper/Manning in 2004, LT in 06, and the general lower scores from WR in 06 as compared to the two years before it.

I know some people don't even look at SoS or just use it as a tie-breaker between players they can't decide on. Personally, I think it has a rather significant impact and I'd like to hear from others who may have researched this more in-depth than myself.

 

[tomarken]

How big or how little do you factor this in when ranking, projecting, and drafting. 2 years ago I relied rather heavily on it and was very successful. This past year, however, I went against what SOS was showing me and drafted Palmer/C Johnson and they struggled against many tough teams. Does anyone know of or have access to end-of-the-season strength of schedules? I'd like to compare player performance to how tough their schedules was, to try to better understand scoring anomalies such as Culpepper/Manning in 2004, LT in 06, and the general lower scores from WR in 06 as compared to the two years before it. I know some people don't even look at SoS or just use it as a tie-breaker between players they can't decide on. Personally, I think it has a rather significant impact and I'd like to hear from others who may have researched this more in-depth than myself.

Hindsight is 20/20. If you knew how defenses would rank this year it would be useful. Sadly, we don't have that information yet.

 

[AB in DC]

I'd like to see end-of-season SOS too. I've asked before, but no one seems to have these numbers.

 

[TheNext0]

I'd like to see end-of-season SOS too. I've asked before, but no one seems to have these numbers.

I'd imagine it would better help to identify players who had good years vs. hard defenses...rather than good years vs. bad defenses. I'm sure someone here has looked in this in more detail.

 

[rdstorm]

How big or how little do you factor this in when ranking, projecting, and drafting. 2 years ago I relied rather heavily on it and was very successful. This past year, however, I went against what SOS was showing me and drafted Palmer/C Johnson and they struggled against many tough teams.

Does anyone know of or have access to end-of-the-season strength of schedules? I'd like to compare player performance to how tough their schedules was, to try to better understand scoring anomalies such as Culpepper/Manning in 2004, LT in 06, and the general lower scores from WR in 06 as compared to the two years before it.

I know some people don't even look at SoS or just use it as a tie-breaker between players they can't decide on. Personally, I think it has a rather significant impact and I'd like to hear from others who may have researched this more in-depth than myself.

I have 2 relatively unrelated responses to this post. First, having had both Carson and Chad last year, I can tell you I felt your pain. My team was built around those two along with Caddy and Fitz, so it was a fairly long year for me. Anyway, the Carson/Chad struggles last year were related more to Carson mentally recovering from his injury (he wasn't stepping into his deep throws like he needed to, for instance), offensive line injuries, and Chad's ego problems at the start of the season (he focused more on his List and his Ocho Cinqo stuff than on football), and not as much because of the SoS.On to SoS and its usage. I am a big proponent of using SoS, but only in using it the right way. I don't buy the argument most people use, that you can't project SoS from year to year; you could make the same argument about fantasy points in general. Sure all you projections won't be 100%, but you could project them with as much accuracy as your other projections.

So, the right way to use SoS is as a modifier to your normal rankings/projections or as a tiebreaker, not as a major factor in ranking players. The absolute wrong way to use it is to rank studs below mediocre players just because they play a harder SoS. SoS has a much greater predictive factor for mid-tier players as well; elite players many times rise to the competition while low end ones are just hard to predict in general. I'm just scratching the surface here; this is a subject I'm thinking of writing an article on, but I'd be happy to share my thoughts in more detail with you if you want to PM me.

 

[Chase Stuart]

http://footballguys.com/articles/07stuart_rearviewqb.php -- This shows the analysis for QBs

There will be one for RBs (and maybe WRs) at some point this summer.

 

[The Man with the Plan]

Coming into last season the Colts had the easiest schedule against passing defenses and Peyton Manning benefitted and he was the #1 quarterback. Drew Brees and Michael Vick had the toughest schedules in the league and they finished #2 and #3. It's tough to figure out. I'll always pay some attention to it but I'll never get scared off entirely by a player's schedule. Players don't bust because of difficult schedules.

 

[TheNext0]

Coming into last season the Colts had the easiest schedule against passing defenses and Peyton Manning benefitted and he was the #1 quarterback. Drew Brees and Michael Vick had the toughest schedules in the league and they finished #2 and #3. It's tough to figure out. I'll always pay some attention to it but I'll never get scared off entirely by a player's schedule. Players don't bust because of difficult schedules.

These are exactly the things that I want to look at though. It helps in projecting for the upcoming year. Manning seems to always have a good year, so I feel comfortable using some sort of average of his previous years as a starting point for him. But the fact that Brees finished #2 and had a tough schedule is something I want to dig deeper intf course I'm not saying that I want to rank players just by their SoS. The example above is a perfect example of why you shouldn't. But I would like to identify which players perform well, regardless of their schedule. I'd like to see players who perform below expectations when they play tough defenses, and players that excel vs mediocre ones. Big thumbs up to FBG for their info and, of course, all the info that is researched and shared through these boards. Extremely useful and much appreciated!

 

[TheNext0]

http://footballguys.com/articles/07stuart_rearviewqb.php -- This shows the analysis for QBs

There will be one for RBs (and maybe WRs) at some point this summer.

Chase, simply put, fantastic article. I look forward to reading the RB and WR if you get to it. Thanks!

 

[gheemony]

http://footballguys.com/articles/07stuart_rearviewqb.php -- This shows the analysis for QBs

There will be one for RBs (and maybe WRs) at some point this summer.

Chase, simply put, fantastic article. I look forward to reading the RB and WR if you get to it. Thanks!

Agreed, but most of us are doing projections in early July. the articles in August don't do as much good. I'd love to have FBGs give Chase more time (and money) to make these articles a priority.

 

[The Man with the Plan]

Coming into last season the Colts had the easiest schedule against passing defenses and Peyton Manning benefitted and he was the #1 quarterback. Drew Brees and Michael Vick had the toughest schedules in the league and they finished #2 and #3. It's tough to figure out. I'll always pay some attention to it but I'll never get scared off entirely by a player's schedule. Players don't bust because of difficult schedules.

These are exactly the things that I want to look at though. It helps in projecting for the upcoming year. Manning seems to always have a good year, so I feel comfortable using some sort of average of his previous years as a starting point for him. But the fact that Brees finished #2 and had a tough schedule is something I want to dig deeper intf course I'm not saying that I want to rank players just by their SoS. The example above is a perfect example of why you shouldn't. But I would like to identify which players perform well, regardless of their schedule. I'd like to see players who perform below expectations when they play tough defenses, and players that excel vs mediocre ones.

Big thumbs up to FBG for their info and, of course, all the info that is researched and shared through these boards. Extremely useful and much appreciated!

Usually it's the best of the best at each position can play well against anybody but even they'll have their bad days too. It's all about the talent. Great players will play better than good players overall against tough defenses but not as well as they would have against bad defenses.Also things change every year. Coming into the season the Saints had a tough schedule against teams like Tampa and Carolina but those defenses weren't as good as they were in 2005 especially the Buccaneers. So it wasn't so much that he Brees played well against good defenses it's that the good defenses weren't good.

With all that being said I do think you should take some note of Strength of Schedule especially if you see a good player with good matchups. When you have those 2 lined that's when a player has a great chance at a career year. Such examples are 2003 Ahman Green, 2004 Peyton Manning, 2005 Cardinals wrs, and 2006 Colts wrs + Peyton Manning. So it's looking at the schedule but never forgetting to look at the quality of the player also.

 

[Chase Stuart]

http://footballguys.com/articles/07stuart_rearviewqb.php -- This shows the analysis for QBs

There will be one for RBs (and maybe WRs) at some point this summer.

Chase, simply put, fantastic article. I look forward to reading the RB and WR if you get to it. Thanks!

Agreed, but most of us are doing projections in early July. the articles in August don't do as much good.

I agree that in a perfect world, these articles would come out earlier. This one especially is a joint production with Doug Drinen, and we've had talks of releasing it before the playoffs next year (i.e., immediately after the season ends). I think that would be pretty cool.

 

[Chase Stuart]

Coming into last season the Colts had the easiest schedule against passing defenses and Peyton Manning benefitted and he was the #1 quarterback. Drew Brees and Michael Vick had the toughest schedules in the league and they finished #2 and #3. It's tough to figure out. I'll always pay some attention to it but I'll never get scared off entirely by a player's schedule. Players don't bust because of difficult schedules.

These are exactly the things that I want to look at though. It helps in projecting for the upcoming year. Manning seems to always have a good year, so I feel comfortable using some sort of average of his previous years as a starting point for him. But the fact that Brees finished #2 and had a tough schedule is something I want to dig deeper intf course I'm not saying that I want to rank players just by their SoS. The example above is a perfect example of why you shouldn't. But I would like to identify which players perform well, regardless of their schedule. I'd like to see players who perform below expectations when they play tough defenses, and players that excel vs mediocre ones.

Big thumbs up to FBG for their info and, of course, all the info that is researched and shared through these boards. Extremely useful and much appreciated!

Usually it's the best of the best at each position can play well against anybody but even they'll have their bad days too. It's all about the talent. Great players will play better than good players overall against tough defenses but not as well as they would have against bad defenses.Also things change every year. Coming into the season the Saints had a tough schedule against teams like Tampa and Carolina but those defenses weren't as good as they were in 2005 especially the Buccaneers. So it wasn't so much that he Brees played well against good defenses it's that the good defenses weren't good.

With all that being said I do think you should take some note of Strength of Schedule especially if you see a good player with good matchups. When you have those 2 lined that's when a player has a great chance at a career year. Such examples are 2003 Ahman Green, 2004 Peyton Manning, 2005 Cardinals wrs, and 2006 Colts wrs + Peyton Manning. So it's looking at the schedule but never forgetting to look at the quality of the player also.

Correct. Brees had a slightly easier than average schedule for scoring FPs. Tampa's D was below average, and Carolina's D was above average. Neither were very good.

 

[nygiants56]

I'd like to see end-of-season SOS too. I've asked before, but no one seems to have these numbers.

go to fantasyindex.com, right pane, final 2006 SOS is listed there ( or was earlier in the week)

 

[TheNext0]

I'd like to see end-of-season SOS too. I've asked before, but no one seems to have these numbers.

go to fantasyindex.com, right pane, final 2006 SOS is listed there ( or was earlier in the week)

Crap, guess they just updated them for this year and aren't providing last year's anymore.