How the NFL’s scheduling model can impact a team’s season

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

The NFL‘s 2023 schedule comes out Thursday night, so it’s a good time to take a closer look at one quirk of the league’s scheduling model: the small part that constitutes a “first-place” or “last-place” schedule.

If you didn’t know, an NFL team’s 17-game schedule is composed of six games against divisional opponents, four against a rotating division within its conference, four against another division in the opposite conference, and then three games based on how the team finished in its division standings. These three games — against your counterparts that finished in the same spot in three other divisions — are the only measure of competitive balance in NFL scheduling. Win your division and you’re facing three other division champs in those games; finish last and you get to face three other cellar-dwellers.

It used to be just two games out of 16 decided by schedule, but when the league added a 17th game in 2021, it did so by adding a fifth non-conference opponent, adding more weight to that part of the schedule. With two years of data now, there are many things we can observe about how that impacts a team’s season and which franchises are handling those games better than others.

Teams are constantly changing

You’ll hear it all the time from coaches: Every season is its own animal, sometimes rarely resembling the previous year. Just because a team was bad last year doesn’t mean it will be the next.

So what looks like a favorable schedule with three bonus last-place teams can actually end up being daunting, and a schedule with three defending division champs might not be that tough at all. No other NFL team has handled these three extra games better over the past two years than the Buffalo Bills, who have had a first-place schedule both years and have gone 5-1 in those games. (The Steelers, Vikings and 49ers have all gone 5-1 as well, but none with a first-place schedule).

But the Bills’ first-place schedule in 2022 wasn’t that difficult — their three extra games were against the Chiefs (plenty tough) but also the Titans and Rams, who went 7-10 and 5-12. Much the same way, four NFL teams that finished last in their division in 2021 bounced back to make the playoffs in 2022: the Giants, Ravens, Jaguars and Seahawks. So the Jets and Lions, both lucky enough to get last-place schedules last fall, got to face an eventual division champ in Jacksonville and a wild card in Seattle among those games.

Another way to show how unpredictable teams are from one year to the next: The NFL’s eight last-place teams from 2021 combined for as many wins in 2022 as the league’s eight second-place teams, and four more than the league’s third-place teams. The league’s eight division champs stayed really good, going a combined 79-55, but the rest of the league was on spin cycle. Of eight last-place teams in 2021, five had winning records in 2022.

How many NFL teams out of 32 do you think finished in the same place in their division in 2021 and 2022? Simple probability says it should be eight — one in four — but the answer is only six. Four teams repeated as division champs — the Bills, Bucs, Bengals and Chiefs — but of the 24 teams that didn’t finish first in 2021, only two (Jets and Broncos) finished in the same spot in 2022. So zero second-place teams stayed in second place, and the same was true for third-place teams. Nothing in the middle stayed the same.

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We only have two years of results to look at, but the year before was much different. From 2020 to 2021, there was much more stagnancy in the standings — the AFC South and AFC West finished in the exact same order both years. So 11 of the 16 AFC teams finished in the same position, though only two NFC teams did the same.

Who has handled these three games best?

We mentioned the Bills as winning this part of the schedule best — 5-1 against those extra defending division champs, compared to 3-3 marks for the Bucs and Bengals. The Chiefs, super-successful of late, have gone 2-4 in those games, losing to the Bills and Titans in 2021 and the Bills and Bengals in 2022.

Pittsburgh isn’t far behind, as the Steelers went 3-0 with a first-place schedule in 2021, then went 2-1 with a second-place schedule for that same 5-1 record in two years. The Vikings went 5-1 with second- and third-place schedules, and the 49ers went 5-1 with third- and fourth-place opponents.

Which divisions are best and worst? It’s middling on the good side, with the NFC South and AFC North both going 14-10 and three other divisions going 13-11. Every division went at least 11-13 except for the AFC South, which has gone 6-18 in two years, with the Colts 0-6 in such games and the Texans 1-5. The only other team faring that poorly in these games is the Lions, who have had a last-place schedule two years in a row and went 1-5 against those fellow last-place teams.

Do you need to ace this part of the season to make the playoffs? Of the 14 playoff teams in 2022, 10 had a winning record in the three games related to standings, with the other four (including the eventual champion Chiefs) going 1-2. The four last-place teams from 2021 that rebounded to make the playoffs in 2022 went a combined 8-4 against their last-place opponents to get there.

Can only three games make a substantial difference? Let’s consider the NFC South, which didn’t have a team with a winning record in 2022 and saw first place and last place separated by a single win. The Bucs, as a perk of winning the division, get a nasty dose of three division champs this fall, facing the Eagles (14-3), 49ers (13-4) and Bills (13-3), a combined 40-10 and all among the final eight teams alive in last year’s playoffs.

Carolina, New Orleans and Atlanta all finished with identical 7-10 records, but the Panthers, who took second on tiebreakers, will face three 2022 playoff teams in the Cowboys, Seahawks and Dolphins, a combined 30-21 last year. The third-place Saints still have it tough with the Giants, Rams and Patriots (22-28-1 last year), and the last-place Falcons have it easier with the Commanders, Cardinals and Jets, who went 19-31-1.

None are particularly kind draws, but in a division so closely bunched last year, an edge in those three games could end up the difference between a division title and another losing season.

The NFL team with the least inviting last-place schedule? It might be the Browns, whose three last-place opponents this fall will be the Jets (added Aaron Rodgers), Broncos (added Sean Payton) and the Bears, who got a haul from trading the draft’s No. 1 pick.

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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