Strength of Schedule

Hey all, first time poster who has been reading the boards the past couple of weeks.

What do people think about our strength of schedule? I was just looking it over today and I feel like we have several fairly difficult stretches despite our poor showing last year (5 glorious wins, and 11 gut-wrenching losses). I like the Week 7 bye, but I do not look forward to playing the Vikings in Week 17 with a playoff spot potentially on the line. Its a little early for predictions, but I'd like to hear people's thoughts.

Looking forward to the start of camp...and for that first home preseason game against Carolina, when Gibbs himself steps out onto FedEx field for the first time.

First off, nice to hear from you Monk Maniac. Always a treat to hear from new posters.

As for the schedule, I think the Skins caught some nice breaks. Bucs, Ravens, Packers, and Bengals all at home. At Chicago, but in October, so the weather shouldn't be too bad. But yeah I think that last game against the Vikings could be huge.

I dont think our schedule will be to hard. Technically our division has the easiest set of schedules, but you cant really read to much into last year with all the changes teams make. I think we could have been in the playoffs last year had we had a little better coaching to get us to win those close games and not give up. A 100% effort should net us a few more wins easily in my opinion.

Going off of last year's standings, I think our schedule ranks 22nd hardest in the league. But, it is the hardest ranked schedule in the NFC East.

part of that is because Dallas and Philly have to play us, with a poor record, and we have to play them, both with good records.

everyone in the division only plays two different teams now anyways right? 6 games in division, 4 in the afc, 4 with another nfc division, that leaves two left

Bergman, we play whoever came in 3rd place in the NFC South and NFC West ( since we automatically play the entire NFC North this season ). Since we came in 3rd, we match-up with the 3rd place guys from those divisions.

I don't think you can truly judge the strength of schedule until the season starts, and even then things change so much week to week. All teams go through hot and cold stages, so it's all about when you play someone.

If you break the schedule down into 4 game sets then it doesn't look quite so daunting. Only 2 sets include 2 playoff teams. Only one set of back to back games against playoff teams. I agree with Mattyk that the strength of schedule could rise or fall depending on how these teams actually perform this season. But it doesn't look to be that tough of a schedule, with the toughest games being the Cowboys, Ravens, Packers, Bengals and Eagles. The Bears, Lions and 49ers are all in rebuilding mode and should be wins. And the Vikings are sure to melt at the end of the season, see Arizona last year.