Scheduled for Success
/On Thursday Night Football, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Houston Texans to win their 16th straight game against AFC South opponents. Since drafting Andrew Luck in 2012, they've gone 18-2 against their division rivals. These past two games have illuminated just how weak their opposition has been, with 40 year-old Matt Hasselback puking, pooping, and filling in at quarterback and looking pretty good beating the Jaguars and Texans.
Having six relatively easy games a year makes 10-win seasons look pretty simple. Not everyone is as fortunate as the Colts, but every year a few select teams are blessed with a taste of what the Colts have yearly.
In 2014, the AFC North sent three of their four teams to the playoffs with their last team finishing 7-9 (and applying WBV's, or Weighted Browns Values, to those wins, Cleveland's 7-9 record is as impressive as the 2007 Patriots' undefeated season). This led many to think it the best division in football. Four games into the 2015 season, the Bengals are undefeated yet the Browns, Steelers, and Ravens are all struggling at a combined 4-8 record. What can change so much for a group of teams that were so successful last year and saw little personnel changes over the offseason?
Well, Steeler's fans will understandably say suspensions and injuries (Ravens fans have a similar, yet weaker argument thanks to the losses of Terrell Suggs and Breshad Perriman). That's definitely a factor to consider, but the schedule seems to be much more influential in determining divisional prominence. And last year, the AFC North got a gold mine of mediocre teams thanks to their scheduled meetings with the AFC South and NFC South.
Before we dive into just how bad these teams are, follow this link for a brief rundown on how the NFL schedule is determined each year. Now on to the AFC and NFC South's mediocrity.
These two divisions ended the season with Tampa Bay, Tennessee and Jacksonville making the first three selections in the NFL Draft. The Carolina Panthers won the NFC South with a 7-8-1 record. Meaning no one in that division finished above .500. The AFC South had the Indianapolis Andrew Lucks win the division as usual and the Houston Texans took advantage of their own division and schedule to go 9-7, but missed the playoffs (they went 4-0 against the Titans and Jaguars and 3-0 against the other three AFC teams that finished last in their division in 2013). Of the eight teams in these divisions, only two had a winning record in 2014.
So the AFC North got to play these eight teams last year and had a feast. Against the NFC South, they went 12-3-1. The NFC East was the only other division to win 12 games against their cross-conference division, finishing with a 12-4 record. And guess who the NFC East had the pleasure of playing? The AFC South, of course. When the AFC North played the AFC South, they went 11-5, with the Colts responsible for three of those five losses.
The North took advantage of their cross-division schedule to inflate their records and then had enough parity within the division for no team to separate itself from the pack. The Steelers won the division with a 4-2 record against AFC North opponents, the Ravens and Bengals sat at 3-3, and the Browns finished at 2-4. When comparing these records to all the other divisions, none had such level results.
This year, the AFC North is matched with the AFC West and NFC West. The kings of those divisions are the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks. In name alone, those are tougher matchups than anything the two South divisions offered in 2014. And these divisions boast depth as well — the San Diego Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs both finished at 9-7 in the AFC West, and the Arizona Cardinals won a wild card with a 10-6 record in the NFC West.
How is the AFC North fairing? Well the Bengals are 3-0 against the AFC West, while the Browns and Ravens are both 0-2 and the Steelers have yet to play a game against any AFC West team. Already, the four teams of the North have four losses against the AFC West, compared to five losses against the AFC South in all of 2014. The Steelers are 2-0 against the NFC West while none of the other three teams have had a matchup against NFC West opposition. We'll have to check back as more of these games unfold, but look for a big matchup this Sunday when Seattle travels to Cincinnati.
So what does this all mean? Well, if someone asked me to predict who will win the wild cards in the AFC, I would put good money on the division that gets to play the AFC South. The AFC West got that matchup in 2013 and sent three teams to the postseason. The AFC North did the same thing in 2014. The AFC East has that matchup in 2015, and, surprise, it looks like they have three playoff-contending teams heading into Week 5 with the Patriots, Bills and Jets. The only concern I would have in making that prediction are the divisional games. New England looks poised to go 6-0 in those games (in fact, they look poised to go 16-0), with both the Jets and Bills splitting their games, that could leave both of them right around 8-8 or 9-7, which might only get one of the two into the postseason.
And I would apply the same theory to the NFC, but with less weight. The NFC's conference makeup is much more extreme than the AFC. Their middle class is fewer and weaker in number. The NFC South drew the AFC South matchup and the Panthers and Falcons are a combined 3-0 against those teams. Look for the NFC South's division winner to have a much better record than the sub-.500 mark that won the group last year, and with two 4-0 teams, they look poised to win a wild card as well.
This all leads me to believe that the schedule creates a short-term illusion of success, particularly in the AFC. The Patriots and Broncos have to be considered great teams because Tom Brady and Peyton Manning win their division every year regardless of schedule. The Colts are insulated by their weak division opponents, and have to be considered locks to win their division, but that shouldn't impress anyone anymore. That leaves the Steelers, Bengals, Ravens, Chiefs and Chargers (and now it looks like the Bills and Jets) jockeying and fighting tooth and nail for three playoff spots. There's very little separation between these teams. Whoever makes it through is certainly deserving and capable of winning games in the playoffs, but in order to get there, they need a little help from the schedule.