I posted the Strength of Schedule info yesterday, and a reader pointed out he’d prefer to see numbers of points allowed. A team like Buffalo or Houston, he pointed out, could finish around .500 but have a very tough defense. This is a fair point, and I recognize many prefer to look at points allowed.

The advantage of wins and losses is that they’re constant. You’ve always got 256 games each year, with 256 wins and 256 losses (barring ties). With other stats – yards, scoring – you then get into issues of the game changing. There’s more offense in the game now, making it less meaningful to compare across years.

But I’ll take a stab at it.

Below are the 50 easiest schedules since 2003. (The league went to 32 teams in 2002, so we have perfect data from 2003 on.) The 2015 is well represented in this pool of teams, with 12 of the 50.

In this schedule chart, the NFC West leads the way. Tampa Bay projects to play the 2nd-easiest schedule of the last 12 years. Carolina and Atlanta aren’t far behind.

I have also, for your reading pleasure, included the end result of how things actually turned out. That is, just because a team is supposed to play an easy schedule doesn’t mean it will actually play out that way. San Francisco, most famously, was supposed to play the 2nd-easiest schedule in 2009, but in fact it ended up being the 2nd-hardest.

There are 38 teams in this pool (we don’t have finishing data for the 2015 teams, of course). Of those only three played the league’s easiest schedule. Eight others (so 11 of 38 total) played top-5 schedules – easy schedules.

Another eight played top-10 schedules (so including the top-5s, 19 of the 38 – exactly half) played top-10 schedules.

Four played bottom-5 schedules, and nine total (including those first four) played bottom-10 schedules. The remaining 10 played what I would call middle-of-the-pack schedules.

Bottom line: when you go into a season with what you think is an easy schedule, there’s about a 50 percent chance it actually will be an easy schedule.

50 EASIEST SCHEDULES SINCE 2003
YearTeamPreRkActRk
2014Indianapolis24.81st22.815th
2015Tampa Bay24.81st??
2014Detroit24.62nd23.54th
2014Miami24.63rd21.629th
2014Houston24.54th24.01st
2012Atlanta24.41st24.41st
2014Minnesota24.35th23.47th
2014Tennessee24.36th23.110th
2014Buffalo24.37th22.222nd
2015Carolina24.32nd??
2015Atlanta24.33rd??
2014NY Giants24.28th22.813th
2013Denver24.01st23.216th
2014NY Jets24.09th22.223rd
2014New England23.910th21.828th
2003Chicago23.91st22.41st
2012New Orleans23.92nd22.126th
2014Green Bay23.911th22.126th
2009Seattle23.81st23.63rd
2003Seattle23.82nd21.84th
2015Washington23.84th??
2015New Orleans23.85th??
2014Chicago23.812th22.224th
2014Jacksonville23.813th23.55th
2014Carolina23.814th23.38th
2015Dallas23.76th??
2012Tampa Bay23.73rd23.39th
2015Houston23.77th??
2015NY Giants23.78th??
2009San Francisco23.62nd19.331st
2014Dallas23.615th23.53rd
2014Washington23.616th23.011th
2014New Orleans23.617th22.716th
2014Philadelphia23.618th22.517th
2015Indianapolis23.69th??
2013Dallas23.52nd24.97th
2014Tampa Bay23.519th23.82nd
2012Carolina23.44th23.012th
2013Kansas City23.43rd25.15th
2012Kansas City23.45th23.56th
2013San Diego23.44th24.310th
2009Arizona23.33rd20.329th
2015Tennessee23.310th??
2011Washington23.31st22.912th
2015New England23.311th??
2014Cincinnati23.320th22.814th
2015Philadelphia23.312th??
2009Minnesota23.34th23.45th
2009St. Louis23.35th20.627th
2003Oakland23.33rd21.69th

—Ian Allan