Is there any correlation between strength of schedule and playoff success?

[1960Pats]

SOS does not really matter I am thinking after having thought it through. The fact is if you go "15-1" you not only have obliterated your opponents, but you have also obliterated your own "SOS" stat.

The things that matter that are not captured by "SOS":

-When you played the Steelers, was Ben in or out?
-When you played Denver, was it home or away?
-When you played Oakland, was Carr in or out?

These are harder to quantify without just doing deeper data analysis. This thread has actually convinced me that SOS is not an important stat.

Nothing that happened in any game matters for any other game. The fact that the Pats got to play Pitt without BR doesn't mean anything now. It only meant something for that game.

I'm thinking of working on something this off-season that will incorporate all of those things you mentioned into a more accurate evaluation.

The rankings I used for my list in post #14 came by taking 7 power rankings, throwing out the high and the low and using the average for each team. Right now those rankings are as accurate as they can be.

 

[1960Pats]

OP- MAJOR flaw in your post.

The only accurate way to assess Pat's sos is to SUBTRACT all the Patriots games from each opponent.

Because the Pats are one of the best teams in the NFL, their sos is automatically going to be weakened by the simple fact that THEY BEAT ALMOST EVERYONE THEY PLAY. That's true not just for the Pats , but ALL the good teams.

Just look at the OP's list: compare teams 1-10'schedule to the bottom ten- 22-32; 1-10 is almost all crappy teams with losing records; 22-32 is almost entirely playoff teams including the 2 best , Pats and Cowboys and I don't think there's a single team 22-32 with a losing record.

OP- you need to subtract each teams games from ALL their opponents- I guarantee that makes Pats and every winning teams sos improve. Otherwise its all pointless b.s.

If you take out the influence of the better teams from everyone's SOS then wouldn't that be less accurate? Those poorer teams play better teams all the time.

I do like the idea of being more accurate though, so how could I do that using power rankings? Is that even possible?

 

[Ivan]

I don't know whether sos matters or not, I did just notice however that Dan Shaugnessy won the "prestigious" J.G. Taylor Award for baseball writing. I thought it was a major honor but then I saw that he was up against a dead guy, Furman Bisher, and a guy who doesn't even speak English, Juan Vene. What a bunch of tomato cans, anyone would win over those two clowns.

 

[pdangle]

The most accurate single predictor of future success is point differential hands down. If you want to make that more accurate still, you'd only then adjust by opponent strength. But pt dif is #1. For example if your strength of schedule, ie your opponent's point differential, is weak, say -2.0 pts a game for the season, but your team pt differnetial is +9.0, you'd adjust the +9.0 by that -2.0 to get a team strength of 7.0. By itself opponent strength is not very useful.

I'd guess that the reason teams with weak opponent strength perform poorly in the playoffs (and reg season too for most that don't make it that far), is bc they are weak teams overall, ones that just squeaked into the playoffs, e.g. winners in a weak division for example, by beating those opponents by a couple points on average. Rightfully knocking them down in strength even further. On the other hand, if they blew out those same opponents by 10.0 pts a game, that would be more important to look at than a "weak schedule". It's all relative to strength of the team, and used solely as an adjustment to that.

 

[mosslost]

Nothing that happened in any game matters for any other game. The fact that the Pats got to play Pitt without BR doesn't mean anything now. It only meant something for that game.

I'm thinking of working on something this off-season that will incorporate all of those things you mentioned into a more accurate evaluation.

The rankings I used for my list in post #14 came by taking 7 power rankings, throwing out the high and the low and using the average for each team. Right now those rankings are as accurate as they can be.

I think common opponents the best stat in this vein, other than just win/loss in general.

I am very glad you will be putting in some decent work for us this of season though, of course.

One question I have, is the whole "SOS" stuff, it does not make sense. I know I have mentioned it a couple of times, but if we go 14-2, and the Browns go 1-15..... that is 13 fewer wins our strength of schedule would have. That has to be be HUGE in determining the final strength of schedule ranking for the two teams. UNLESS they somehow discount, or subtract YOUR wins against your schedule. However, even that seems like a stupid stat at that point. No doubt to me no matter what they do with that ranking it is horse **** in actually mattering. If you are ****ing 14-2 you did ****ing well!

The thing that does interest me in understanding more is the OP stat about the 14-2, last 16 SBs, winner had higher SOS. I would love to see what the regular season 16 game records were for all those teams, and compare to win loss in those 16 SBs.. not hard to do but I feel older even older this new year morn and I am way too lazy.

 

[jimnance]

If you take out the influence of the better teams from everyone's SOS then wouldn't that be less accurate? Those poorer teams play better teams all the time.

I do like the idea of being more accurate though, so how could I do that using power rankings? Is that even possible?

No you're not understanding. Of course you don't remove all the good teams from everyone's sos. That makes no sense. But whenever you're trying to figure out ANY teams sos, good or bad, you need to remove THAT particular teams results from ALL their games played.

E.g. to arrive at the Pats sos you go thru each team they played, add up all their wins and losses, then subtract the results of the one or two Pats games they played. So miami is currently 10-5, they lost to the Pats so their record for Pats sos purposes is 10-4. Its basic common sense and when "experts" are computing sos- for example the NCAA football & bball postseason, they ALWAYS do what I just explained.

 

[denverpatsfan]

Interesting stats. We shall see. I think KC will be the true test for this team unless they can avoid them somehow. What is KCs SOS?

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Absolutely no correlation imo. Good teams are good teams. They play whoever is on the schedule and if they are better, they'll win (in most cases).

This is one of those things that I categorize as overanalyzing.

In general, I agree with that. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, "You play your season against the teams on the schedule you have not on the schedule somebody thinks you should have."

But...14--2 in favor of the SB team who had the tougher record...that's not a stat that can be dismissed out of hand.

 

[1960Pats]

I think common opponents the best stat in this vein, other than just win/loss in general.

I am very glad you will be putting in some decent work for us this of season though, of course.

One question I have, is the whole "SOS" stuff, it does not make sense. I know I have mentioned it a couple of times, but if we go 14-2, and the Browns go 1-15..... that is 13 fewer wins our strength of schedule would have. That has to be be HUGE in determining the final strength of schedule ranking for the two teams. UNLESS they somehow discount, or subtract YOUR wins against your schedule. However, even that seems like a stupid stat at that point. No doubt to me no matter what they do with that ranking it is horse **** in actually mattering. If you are ****ing 14-2 you did ****ing well!

The thing that does interest me in understanding more is the OP stat about the 14-2, last 16 SBs, winner had higher SOS. I would love to see what the regular season 16 game records were for all those teams, and compare to win loss in those 16 SBs.. not hard to do but I feel older even older this new year morn and I am way too lazy.

I like looking at stats, but it's always been my contention that what happened in previous games, SBs included, has no bearing on what happens during an upcoming game. Using the OPs numbers I'd say the odds are that a team will break that trend. Hopefully the Pats this year.

The difference between the Pats and Browns is even greater if you use their rankings instead of their records, which is what I do. If a team plays #1 NE and #32 Cleveland it would average out in the middle, where it should.

To get a true SOS you need to account for a lot of things. One thing that makes it very difficult is how teams match up vs each other's strengths and weaknesses. Too bad there wasn't some way to include that in a ranking. For instance, a team could rank 3rd as a Pats opponent but 10th as another team's opponent.