Remember the preseason, when we all agreed that Houston would play the league’s easiest schedule? Its opponents had a combined win-loss record of 116-140 in 2017. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But now that it’s October, that data’s looking pretty much worthless.

I just plugged in the defensive numbers into the schedule. That is, I took the points allowed by each team and then cross-checked those against the remainder of the schedule.

The Texans, as luck would have it, project to play the hardest schedule in the next 12 weeks. Their next 11 games are against opponents who’ve allowed an average of 21.2 points per game. That’s being fueled by three games against the Jaguars and Titans.

Other teams with hard schedules: Eagles, Lions, Bills, Colts.

The easiest schedules, meanwhile, seem to belong to the teams in the AFC North (where the Steelers, Browns and Bengals have had problems stopping anyone). The Ravens and Bengals on paper project to play the worst defenses the rest of the way, while the Browns aren’t far behind the Cardinals.

These scheduling numbers suggest that Andy Dalton and Joe Flacco – historically maligned quarterbacks – will continue to put up top-10 numbers in a lot of weeks.

For this project, by the way, I left out Week 17 – most fantasy leagues are shuttered at that time.

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE (Weeks 5-16)
TeamPoints
Baltimore27.86
Cincinnati27.14
Arizona27.05
Cleveland27.00
Denver26.52
Oakland25.89
Carolina25.81
Seattle25.41
LA Chargers25.09
Pittsburgh24.66
Chicago24.45
New England23.93
LA Rams23.93
Green Bay23.57
Tampa Bay23.49
Atlanta23.47
Miami23.43
Washington23.42
New Orleans23.38
Jacksonville23.29
NY Jets23.23
Minnesota23.23
San Francisco23.16
Kansas City22.82
Dallas22.69
NY Giants22.19
Tennessee21.79
Indianapolis21.75
Buffalo21.70
Detroit21.61
Philadelphia21.47
Houston21.17

—Ian Allan