The bottom line is that so many offense use their ball handlers in vastly different ways from one another so that taking it as granular as reviewing "tight ends" was just wildly inaccurate and eventually even misleading.

The reality is that each team passes and rushes the ball - no matter what team you are talking about. There is a commonality among all teams in those two metrics. So I have returned the Ease of Schedule back to being only for rushing numbers (rushing yards and touchdowns scored by running backs) and passing numbers (all passing yardage and scores thrown by a quarterback).

Every team runs with their running backs so that is a direct correlation. Each team passes but you need to use some wisdom there because Philly throws to running backs, the Chargers throw to their tight end and the Bengals only throw to their wide receivers. So passing "ease" has to be applied to each team as they would use their players.

But that is not enough. In my quest to refine tools to be the most effective and accurate as I can, I constantly review the results and methods for improvement. And the change this year is that no longer are the "good" and "bad" matchups related to a team. They are now related to both team and venue. The reality is that many teams play much differently on the road than they do at home. What this season's improved (2.0) Ease of Schedule has done is to take each NFL defense and consider them as two separate entities. One on the road and the other at home. In some cases, it did not matter - both were great for a team (or really bad). In others, it certainly did. Taking the eight home games and eight road games, each had their highest and lowest games removed to eliminate uncharacteristic extremes. Then the per game average fantasy points allowed were determined from the six remaining home and six remaining road games. From a total set of 64 possibilities (32 defenses both home and away), the best and worst 16 matchups were used.

This is the most accurate picture of defenses from last year - hands down. While regular season EOS will not split them out because of a lack of adequate sample size, the preseason EOS considered venue in addition to the defense - it makes a difference. For passing, this still led to a nice split of eight each of home and road games for both the good and bad matchups. But this is much more accurate than we have been in the past. And more accurate than any other you will find.

Three different views are given below - Weeks 1 to 6 show what players will face as they start the season. Weeks 1 through 16 are shown for a full season view and weeks 14 to 16 show the most common weeks for fantasy playoffs. Below that is the NFL schedule marked for each team to show when they have good (green) or bad (red) match-ups.

Week - By - Week

COMMENTS (page 2 of 2)

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Jon

Posted Oct 2, 2008 2:06am EDT

What day will the Ease of Schedule 3.0 be released?? I'm awaiting this data patiently. Its quite helpful in trades.

David Dorey

Posted Sep 23, 2008 3:44pm EDT

It gets updated after this weeks games since we will have enough data to do a current year version.

jmkramer

Posted Sep 23, 2008 2:43pm EDT

when does this get updated?!? Indy is not the Toughest run defense anymore!

David Dorey

Posted Aug 25, 2008 4:16pm EDT

Playing @ATL averaged 38.8 passing points allowed but hosting the Falcons only averaged 28.5 (10th out of 10th worse). That is because when teams hosted the Falcons, they would beat them by the run but playing in Atlanta used the pass more.

laylow

Posted Aug 25, 2008 3:32pm EDT

How is ATL good and bad for NO's schedule?

David Dorey

Posted Aug 17, 2008 1:56pm EDT

I have done that in the past and found that it was less accurate. The problem is that all teams do not pass the same way - some use TEs extensively (KC, SD, CLE, etc.) and others never use them. That skews how defenses apparently rank against the positions. AFC West teams are going to look horrible against TEs because they face Gates or Gonzo 4 times a year. Other divisions just don't use them. Other teams use RBs as receivers while others do not. You can give the easiest schedule to some teams and it wouldn't matter. Having done this since 1997 all kinds of ways, I have come full circle back to just passing and rushing because it is most accurate. You then have to apply how teams use their offense to it.

RJ

Posted Aug 17, 2008 11:06am EDT

I followed the chart and found the distinction between home & away matchups particularly interesting but I do have one request ahead of next years passing EoS. Is there any way you could differentiate between the individual positions in the passing game. For instance a team may fare well against Wideouts but give up big points to TEs or perhaps Running Backs.

Personally, when preparing for the draft, I'd find that further level of detail particularly useful when making decisions.

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