A certain segment gets up at arms annually over one team having an 'easy' schedule and another a 'tough' schedule, but it's rather simple to explain. A 14-2 team doesn't have to play themselves and their 14-2 record twice a year, but the last place team in the same division does. Conversely that team that finished with the better record benefits by playing a 6-10 team twice, but that that last place team does not have themselves on their schedule.
Compare two teams head to head and remove the records of the games they play against each other and look at how much the picture changes; in this case consider the Dolphins and the Pats. The standard SoS has Miami at 127-129 (.496) and the Pats at 116-140 (.453). Remove the games they faced each other and now the Dolphins are 99-125 (.442) and the Patriots are 104-120 (.464); Miami goes from 43 percentage points 'tougher' to 22 percentage points 'easier', a net swing of 65 percentage points!
In my opinion the whole strength of schedule discussion is way over analyzed and given far too much importance. Remember how much talk their was on a daily basis of the schedule the Pats and Ravens each had in the week prior to their playoff game? Did it have any factor at all in the outcome of that game? Of course not.
Historical analysis will likely show there is little or no correlation between strength of schedule and predicting outcomes of future games, but the media keeps bringing it up because many fans try to use it as evidence that their team is somehow superior than another team, or that their rival is not as good as they appear to be.
