05-14-2022, 05:27 PM
(05-14-2022, 05:05 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: Bengals played the 3rd hardest schedule last year.
"Their opponents combined to go 153-133-2 in 2021, good for a .535 winning percentage, the third-best opponents' winning percentage in the NFL behind only the Rams and Cardinals."
If you use raw record, then yes. However, there is a better way to try to assess SOS, in my opinion. I like the SOS metric that PFR provides. It is looking at your opponents margins of victory and who they have played to get there. Long story short, a lot of the Bengals opponents had mediocre records but didn’t really play tough schedules themselves.
By this metric, the Bengals had the easiest schedule in the league. I’m not entirely certain that I agree with that, but I don’t believe that the Bengals had the third toughest schedule by any stretch. The answer is probably somewhere in between what we are discussing here. I think Cincinnati had a fairly easy schedule. None of the divisional teams were very good except for Baltimore, who was eaten alive by injuries. Then you add in teams like the Jets, Lions, Jaguars, and Bears and it starts looking pretty unimpressive.
I think they showed out well against the tough teams, aside from the Chargers. They played GB and SF tough while outright beating KC.
