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

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David Dorey

Posted Aug 16, 2008 11:17pm EDT

The good and bad matchups are purely a statistically determined rankings based on last year sliced, diced and weighted. It may not seem to make sense, but I can assure that is how it happened last year.

Arod

Posted Aug 16, 2008 10:53pm EDT

I agree. Ive used the Huddle for the last 4 years and always have a solid if not the best team. Ive only missed the playoffs once. This chart is a little confusing though. How can a home game against a division rival be more difficult than an away game with a division rival?

nick

Posted Aug 16, 2008 2:18pm EDT

How can any team vs. Atlanta anywhere, be bad especially minus deangelo?

The LB.

Posted Aug 15, 2008 5:14pm EDT

You people need help. The Huddle rules. Seriously, let the customized cheet sheet be your guide. I've been playing 15-16 years and these guys are the best. Simple. This chart allows one to see how the rankings are created. Don't ask questions. In time the answers present themselves. You're welcome. Peace.

UGP2

Posted Aug 11, 2008 10:47am EDT

The EOS is the Good matchups minus the Bad matchups. Therefore Chicago has 7 Easy (Good) matchups and 3 Tough (Bad) Matchups. Hence giving them a +4 EOS (7-3= 4). On the otherhand SD has only 2 Easy Matrchups and 10 Tough ones giving them a -8 EOS(2-10= -8).

DMD

Posted Aug 7, 2008 2:28pm EDT

Because I count a bye week as a bad game since you get no points at all that week.

Fin

Posted Aug 7, 2008 2:23pm EDT

I am having trouble as well. The two charts do not match, for example the week 1-16 chart above shows Chi. having 7 good and 3 bad match ups with a EOS rating of 4. The lower chart shows the having 7 good and 2 bad match ups with 6 white ( I guess being a neutral match up). Why do none of the teams have 16 total games in the top chart ( Just in case white is not ment to be neatral) please explain !!!

dan

Posted Aug 4, 2008 11:43pm EDT

...but also, if you consider that a good defense against the run will normally yield more passing yards, especially against a good passing team, how a particular offensive strength and/or weakness matches up against a particular defensive strength and/or weakness, will also have an affect on the strength of schedule.

bdk

Posted Jul 18, 2008 9:59pm EDT

Never mind my previous comment. I misread! One too many beers tonight I guess.

bdk

Posted Jul 18, 2008 9:56pm EDT

I believe the top chart is the data from 2007 last year and the week by week is the projected matchups for 2008.

DMD

Posted Jun 27, 2008 11:15pm EDT

The problem was that I did not have the home game against CIN in green. That, along with HOU, @CLE and @BAL made up the 4 good games (green). There are only five "red games" but PIT is considered to have six bad match-ups because I consider the bye week as a bad week (sort of the worse of all really). I include them because they matter in determining the first six games Ease of Schedule but overall, every team obviously has one bye week.

Gene Pappert

Posted Jun 27, 2008 3:11pm EDT

I am having difficulty understanding your chart and Good/Bad figures.
You have 4 good and 6 bad for the season (only ten) and on the weekly years schedule there are only two green weeks and 5 red weeks and 7 white weeks for Pit. why do the figures not balance with
above chart?

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