Enough of strength of schedule, in terms of opponents’ records. Instead, let’s consider strength of schedule, in terms of TV exposure: the general idea being, the more out-of-town people that will see a team play, the better its schedule is.
It would be a step forward to crudely quantify strength of TV schedule, so I’ve come up with such a model. Teams’ TV schedules score points based on time slots; team with the most points has the best TV schedule. My crude scoring system gives:
4 points for Monday night football
3 points for any other time slot with no other games against it (Sun nite ,Sat, Thur)
1 point for the 4pm Sunday time slot
0 points for the 1pm Sunday time slot
I’ve separated the first two categories from the last two, based on the simple notion that it’s a hell of a lot better to be playing the only game in a time slot, rather than being up against other games at the same time. I’ve given MNF an extra point because it still seems to have more cachet than late-season Saturday games and whatnot. And while there are more 4pm games every week than there used to be, there’s still a much smaller crowd of 4pm games than 1pm games; a game at 4 is more likely to be televised more widely than a game at 1, all other things being equal.
Since the NFL and the networks cooperate to give the best exposure to teams that they think people will want to watch, scoring strength of TV schedule tells you who they think is hot, and who’s not.
The fly in the ointment is that teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones can’t be starting their home games at 10 or 11am, local time, on Sundays, so their scores get artificially inflated with a flock of 4pm starts that they otherwise wouldn’t get. I haven’t figured out how to adjust for this, but then I haven’t been thinking about this very long. I suppose I could knock out the 4pm advantage, but that seems to me to be real, within a time zone anyway. Besides, the reality is that a better TV schedule is a better TV schedule, regardless of why.
So, who’s hot?
The Raiders and Broncos are hot, with 25 points each. Unless I missed somebody, the only other team scoring above 20 was the Giants, with 21. (Like I said, there’s a West Coast advantage in this system.) The Redskins and Eagles have 19 points each, and the Rams have 18.
And who’s not?
The Bengals: 1 point. Sunday at 1 all season, except one 4:15pm start when they’re playing on the West Coast. The Falcons and Panthers have 3 each, and the Browns and Bears are both at 4. (By comparison, the lowest-scoring Mountain/West team is the Chargers, with 12 points.)
So, whaddaya think? Is it useful? Or does it blow chunks? Any suggestions for improvement?