You’ve landed on last season’s strength of schedule breakdown. Looking for Warren Sharp’s NEW strength of schedule projections for the upcoming 2022 season? We’ve got you covered:

The 2021 NFL regular season schedule has officially be released in full with the league’s first 17-game, 18-week regular season. The season will open with the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, September 9.

While the NFL, added an extra game and week, there is still only one bye week per team.

Below is a schedule grid that features each team’s week-by-week schedule.

On the link below, you can play around with different factors on what teams will be facing this season from offensive and defensive efficiency to more specific stats such as explosive play rate and pace.

2021 NFL Strength of Schedule, Visualization & Tool


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While there aren’t perfect strength of schedule metrics, using 2021 Vegas win totals is much better than so many widely used metrics that use the previous season’s record. The Vegas win totals give us a better indication of what teams could look like in 2021 than their 2021 wins would. Using that metric, we can see the San Francisco 49ers have the easiest projected schedule while the Las Vegas Raiders have the hardest. Here is the strength of schedule rankings for each team, based on Vegas win totals.

Other Schedule Notes

 

Teams with 3 straight road games:

Colts (Weeks 3-5)
Bengals (Weeks 6-8)
Cowboys (Weeks 13-15)

Teams with 3 straight home games:

Cowboys (Weeks 3-5)
Vikings (Weeks 3-5)
Ravens (Weeks 5-7)
Browns (Weeks 6-8)
Colts (Weeks 8-10)
Bengals (Weeks 12-14)
Texans (Weeks 12-14)

Longest stretches between road games:

Ravens (home from 10/4 thru 11/11) = 39 days
Dolphins (home from 11/22 thru 12/27) = 36 days
Chiefs (home from 11/15 thru 12/16) = 32 days

Longest stretch with just one road game:

Dolphins (between 11/1 and 12/26 just 1 road game) = 57 days
Chiefs (between 10/25 and 12/15 just 1 road game) = 53 days
Jaguars (between 9/13 and 10/30 just 1 road game) = 49 days
Steelers (between 9/13 and 10/30 just 1 road game) = 49 days
Ravens (between 10/4 and 11/20 just 1 road game) = 49 days
Vikings (between 9/20 and 11/6 just 1 road game) = 49 days
Broncos (between 11/8 and 12/25 just 1 road game) = 49 days
Bengals (between 11/22 and 1/8 just 1 road game) = 49 days
Packers (between 11/22 and 1/8 just 1 road game) = 49 days

Play first two games on the road:

Cowboys
Broncos
Vikings
49ers

Most travel miles:

49ers
Seahawks
Jaguars
Rams
Chargers
Dolphins

Least travel miles:

Bengals
Steelers
Browns
Bills
Ravens

Most net travel miles:

49ers
Falcons
Saints
Buccaneers
Panthers
Cardinals

Least net travel miles:

Raiders
Texans
Eagles
Bengals
Ravens
Broncos

Most games vs opponent off bye:

3 – NE
2 – IND, TB, BAL, SEA, GB, MIA, MIN, WFT, CHI
1 – PIT, TEN, ATL, NYG, JAX, NYJ, LAC, DAL, LVR, DEN, CLE
0 – CAR, DET, PHI, CIN, LAR, KC, SF, NO, ARI, HOU, BUF

Most primetime games:

5 – LAR, KC, SF, NO, DAL, TB, BAL, SEA, GB, PIT
4 – IND, BUF, MIN, CHI

Fewest primetime games:

2 – MIA, PHI
1 – ATL, JAX, NYJ, DEN, HOU, CIN, DET, CAR

Best net rest differential

12 – CAR*
11 – DET, CIN
10 – PHI
9 – LAR, KC
8 – SF, NO
7 – ARI
6
5 – HOU

*tied for best for any team since 2002

Worst net rest differential

-5 – GB
-6 – TEN
-7 – MIA
-8 – PIT
-9 – MIN
-10
-11
-12
-13
-14 – CHI, WAS
-15 – NE

Teams that get to play opponents coming off a Monday Night Football game:
3 – KC
2 – BAL, CAR, DET, JAX, LVR, SEA, SF, TB
0/1 – Everyone else

Teams that get to face rookie head coaches on Thursday Night Football:

NE, CAR, CHI, CIN, KC, IND, TB

Rookie head coaches are historically bad on TNF (7-18 straight up since 2015)

Opposing QB Strength

Some people like to only look at opponent QBs when trying to evaluate SOS. Using EPA per play from last year, here are the number of times a team will face an opposing QB that ranks in the bottom 20 percentile in EPA per play (Auto assumed Lawrence & Wilson are bottom 20th percentile, Dalton starts & Tyrod/Jameis stats come from 2018/19):