Fantasy News
A reader, Travis Billman, posted a Strength of Schedule question the other day.
Specifically, he wanted to know if Steve Slaton compiled big rushing numbers last year because Houston played an easy schedule against the run. Billman wanted to see the final Strength of Schedule numbers strictly in terms of rushing production.
Those numbers appear below. They’re the average numbers of each team’s 16 opponents – how those defenses fared in their other 15 games (so 15 x 16 = 240 total games). According to those numbers (as you can see below), Slaton actually played a harder than average schedule in terms of run defense. Two games against the Titans and games against Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Chicago and Baltimore contributed to that ranking.
In the chart below, you’re looking at rushing yards per game, average number of rushing touchdowns in a 16-game season, and average rushing fantasy points per game using the system of 1 point for every 10 rushing yards and 6 points for TD runs.
Not on the chart below that San Diego played the easiest schedule in terms of run defenses – six games against Denver, Kansas City and Oakland, who were all terrible against the run. So not only did LaDainian Tomlinson struggle last year, he did so while everything was set up for him to succeed. If you look at three of the other four teams in the top 5, you see the backs who took advantage of those easy schedules – Michael Turner, DeAngelo Williams and Adrian Peterson.
At the other end of the spectrum, you see Jamal Lewis, Steven Jackson, Cedric Benson and Brandon Jacobs as backs who had to contend with tough schedules last year.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE – TOUGH RUN DEFENSES (2008)
Yds TDR Points
129 17.5 19.5 San Diego
125 17.9 19.2 Tampa Bay
124 17.7 19.0 Minnesota
125 16.7 18.7 Atlanta
124 16.9 18.7 Carolina
124 16.8 18.7 New Orleans
123 16.9 18.6 Chicago
123 16.1 18.3 NY Jets
119 16.4 18.1 New England
124 14.8 18.0 Denver
121 15.6 17.9 Miami
118 16.1 17.9 Tennessee
116 16.3 17.8 Jacksonville
120 14.7 17.5 Buffalo
118 15.1 17.4 San Francisco
119 14.8 17.4 Kansas City
118 14.9 17.4 Oakland
114 15.5 17.2 Green Bay
113 14.9 16.9 Houston
115 14.1 16.8 Baltimore
113 14.1 16.6 Seattle
114 13.7 16.5 Washington
111 13.9 16.3 Arizona
110 13.9 16.2 Philadelphia
109 13.9 16.1 Indianapolis
112 12.5 15.9 Pittsburgh
109 12.7 15.7 Dallas
104 13.5 15.5 Detroit
108 11.9 15.2 NY Giants
106 12.0 15.1 Cincinnati
104 11.9 14.8 St. Louis
101 12.4 14.8 Cleveland
—Ian Allan
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Posted by Travis Billman | Jun. 15 at 07:37 PM
Woohoo!! This was exactly what I was asking for! Should we let these rankings affect our outlook on someone like Michael Turner, who is moving from one of the easiest run schedules to one of the hardest? Oh, and do you have any plans on doing this for passing defense? These are the stats that separate the men from the boys when it comes to draft day! And just so you know, I picked Steve Slaton randomly in my head. I wasn't meaning to imply that I thought he wasn't talented--just needed a player to make my point.
Posted by IAN ALLAN | Jun. 15 at 08:11 PM
I'll stick up the passing stats tomorrow. But you missed the point I made earlier. I have looked at the strength of schedule stats for the last 17 years. And based on that extensive study, I can say with confidence that it makes a lot more sense to judge strength of schedule by wins & losses, rather than on points allowed, rushing defense or passing defense. The numbers just don't work. So while we can use last year's numbers to say that Michael Turner benefited from an easy schedule (and he did have two huge games against Kansas City and Detroit), we can't look at rushing strength of schedule and say that running back X is going to have a good year because of an easy run schedule or that running back Y is going to struggle because of a hard run defense schedule.
Posted by Travis Billman | Jun. 16 at 09:51 AM
I gotcha. . . the reason being that teams' rushing and passing defense varies too much from year to year, whereas the overall strength of their team is less apt to change as dramatically? I remember reading that. Can you make subtle inferences about a RB's ability based on last year's schedule though? I would think it's ok to infer that the fact that a RB ran particularly well against a tough run schedule would mean he's a very talented runner; and a RB who ran above average against a particularly easy run schedule may just be an average RB who benefited from a good schedule. Make sense? Or do you just look at the overall numbers and not worry about how hard or easy their schedule was?