Did the strength of schedule get us again?

[Ebenezer]

It has seemed for years that we have a tough yearly schedule. I took a look at the Sagarin Rankings this morning...

Interesting. We, again, have the 3rd hardest schedule in the league...after the next 4 games I bet we end up with the hardest. Not looking for excuses but it is interesting nonetheless.

More...The Bills are ranked 13th. A couple of wins squandered and this team is easily in the top 10.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nfl03.htm

[OpIv37]

We do have a tough schedule, but the problem is we haven't won against the weaker teams. Dallas, Houston and the Jets had no business beating us- move those 3 to the win column and the strength of schedule doesn't affect us.

But how did we end up with such a tough schedule? we were last in the division last year.

[TigerJ]

Under the reorganization plan that took effect in the 2002 season, a team's record no longer has much bearing on how weak or strong its schedule is, but the biggest factor is that free agency and cap issues have the potential to allow a team to make a significant improvement in a single year. Dallas and Houston both have much better records this year than last whether or not we should have beaten them.

[OpIv37]

Or a team can spend a lot of money on free agents and do worse... but we wouldn't know anything about that....

[socalfan]

I can't put a lot of weight on this type of statistic, because if you get the crap beat out of you, by good teams or bad teams...then you are still a bad team.