The NFC South has lots of teams looking to get back on track. New Orleans and Atlanta have offensive firepower but were too weak defensively last year. The Bucs were simply terrible. All of these teams could be helped by playing lesser schedules in 2015.

Teams vary from year to year, so there’s always some fluctuation, but it looks like the NFC South teams will play the easiest schedules in the league this season. Easiest in terms of opposing defenses, anyway. Five teams will play opponents that (on average) allowed at least 23.8 points per game last year, and all but one of those teams is in the NFC South.

The Bengals, Steelers, 49ers and Rams project to face the league’s toughest defenses.

2015 STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE (scoring)
TeamPoints
Tampa Bay24.8
Carolina24.3
Atlanta24.3
Washington23.8
New Orleans23.8
Dallas23.7
Houston23.7
NY Giants23.7
Indianapolis23.6
Tennessee23.3
New England23.3
Philadelphia23.3
Buffalo23.1
Jacksonville23.0
NY Jets22.9
Miami22.5
Detroit22.5
San Diego22.4
Kansas City22.1
Minnesota22.0
Denver21.9
Oakland21.8
Baltimore21.7
Cleveland21.7
Green Bay21.6
Arizona21.4
Seattle21.4
Chicago21.4
St. Louis21.1
San Francisco21.1
Pittsburgh20.8
Cincinnati20.7

—Ian Allan