During the fantasy season, Footballguys.com posts their weekly Strength of Schedule (SOS). As Clayton Gray references in his article "Strength of Schedule - Out of the Gate" in the latest Footballguys magazine (p. 15), this (SOS) is different than the typical Strength of Schedule offerings at other websites. While most websites will at best differentiate between rushing and passing in their (SOS) calculations, Footballguys' will actually differentiate (SOS) by position. Gray goes on to discuss how this type of breakdown can be very beneficial when trying to evaluate potential players during the draft that will enable you to get off to a fast start in your league. Essentially, in trying to decide between several players who seem to be of equal value and all other things appear to be equal, the idea is to go with the player who faces the weakest defenses early in the season (relative to that player's position). Of course, you can also take the (SOS) of the player's entire season into account when deciding between these same players if you are more concerned about performance over the entire season as opposed to the first few weeks of the season. While all of this is great and gives you a leg up on other owners in your league during the draft process, this is not the only beneficial aspect of (SOS). In my mind, the most beneficial aspect of (SOS) is realized around midseason when you are looking to position your team for the playoffs as well as the "playoff push".

THE PROBLEM WITH EARLY SEASON (SOS) CALCULATIONS

Obviously, 2006 preseason (SOS) calculations will be derived (in part) from statistics during the 2005 season since this is the most recent data available. Since more can change between NFL seasons then can change week to week in the NFL, the numbers used in the preseason (SOS) calculations will almost certainly (by nature) be less accurate early in the season then at any other point in time during that same season. To get a better understanding of this, just look at the defense ranks, in general, from the past two seasons:

Less then half of the defenses that were in the overall top ten in 2004 were in the overall top ten in 2005. This equally applied to the individual categories of rushing defense and passing defense. This puts the early (SOS) at a handicap right from the start. Now, this is not to discredit utilizing (SOS) in making selections during the draft because "some" helpful information is better than "no" helpful information, and the Footballguys' (SOS) takes into account several other factors when coming up with their early season (SOS) as well. As such, it is still the most accurate information to access. That being said, even though the FBG (SOS) is not solely based on who had the best defense the previous year, this is still part of the equation, and we have shown how much can change between seasons.

The most beneficial aspect of (SOS) comes around midseason Clayton Gray updates the (SOS) weekly during the fantasy season, so by midseason, the numbers used for (SOS) should begin to be weighted more heavily upon statistics from the first half of the season as opposed to last year's statistics. By this time, it is readily evident which defenses have been performing well and will continue to do so (barring injuries), and which defenses have not been performing well and will continue to struggle. The actual numbers will prove this out as well. The (SOS) at this point in the fantasy season will potentially look quite different from the initial (SOS) posted at the start of the fantasy season, but should be pretty accurate as to how the (SOS) will look for the remainder of the year.

To show this, let's take a defense that was top ten in stopping the rush for 2004, but then fell out of the top ten in 2005. The New York Jets went from 5th ranked against the rush in 2004 to 29th ranked in 2005. If we go back and look at the (SOS) values for the Jets at the start of the 2005 season (preseason) and then compare this to the updated (SOS) in weeks 7 and then updated again in week 14 (typically the first week of the fantasy playoffs), then we can see if there was a trend in place that showed this big drop off in actual "on the field" performance. Indeed, the preseason (SOS) for the Jets rush defense in 2005 was 17.9 which fell just outside (9th) of being considered one of the top 8 hardest defenses to run against for the upcoming year.

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Running Backs – Preseason (8/15/05)

By week 7, this same Jets rush defense had fallen to just outside of being in the top 8 easiest defenses to run against (9th).

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Running Backs – Week 7

After a bye week (week 8), and a week 9 rating, again, just outside of the top 8 easiest defenses to rush against (10th), this Jets DEF ranked as one of the top 8 easiest defenses to run against the remainder of the fantasy regular season (weeks 10-13) and the fantasy playoffs (weeks 14-16).

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Running Backs – Week 14

We could equally look at pass defense. The Miami Dolphin pass defense went from being ranked 2nd in 2004 to being ranked 20th in 2005. If we go back and look at the (SOS) values for the Dolphins pass defense (specifically looking at the (SOS) for WRs that will play against the Dolphins) at the start of the 2005 season (preseason) and then compare this to the updated (SOS) in weeks 7 and then updated again in week 14 (typically the first week of the fantasy playoffs), we see the preseason (SOS) for the Dolphins pass defense in 2005 was 18.6 which ranked (4th) and well within what were considered to be the top 8 hardest defenses to pass against for the upcoming year.

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Wide Receivers – Preseason (8/15/05)

By week 7, this same Dolphins pass defense had fallen firmly inside the top 8 easiest defenses to pass against (4th).

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Wide Receivers – Week 7

The remainder of the fantasy regular season and fantasy playoffs, this Dolphins pass defense ranked anywhere from 7th to 10th as the top easiest defenses to pass against (with the exception of week 13 where they oddly ranked 15th).

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Wide Receivers – Week 14

This is not to say that these types of fluctuations will always happen, but rather that they can happen, and we see from the actual game data that just because a defense was top ten a year ago does not mean that this same defense will be top ten in the upcoming year. And while some of the reason for this can be easily discovered ahead of time before the start of the next season and is indeed taken into account by the Footballguys' (SOS) (e.g. - loss of key players, free agent pickups, injuries, etc..) there still can be a great deal of variance between the preseason (SOS) and the mid- to late-season (SOS). But once we reach the middle of the season, these same defenses which showed a wide range in performance from year to year and a wide range of (SOS) from week 1 to week 7, will begin to reach a stabilization point where (unless there is some key event) it will be pretty well known how they will perform for the remainder of the year and their corresponding (SOS) remain relatively unchanged the remaining weeks of the season.

MIDDLE OF THE SEASON (SOS) - TIME TO POSITION YOUR TEAM

As I have stated, we can usually see that by week 7 you can get a pretty accurate picture of what the rest of the season will hold from a (SOS) stand point. In light of this, now is the time to begin to identify which players at each position have easy schedules throughout the remainder of the regular season as well as during the playoff weeks in your league, and look to either acquire them either through trade or through the waiver wire. Either way, now is the time to position your team for the remainder of the season.

MAJOR MOVES - TRADES

One of the nice things about the (SOS) ratings becoming more stable around the middle of the season is that this is about the same time that owners begin looking to make trades. Most owners are not inclined to trade early in the season. It usually takes a few weeks for frustration to set in and a certain amount of desperation to build up. Also, early on there is not the added trading activity that comes from having to cover the BYE weeks since these do not start until week 3. It also takes a while for injuries to begin to pile up as well. With all this, you generally see trading beginning to pick up between weeks 5 and 8 when owners find themselves running into some or several of these issues.

Regardless of the reasons owners are looking to trade, the (SOS) can help immensely. Now, obviously, there have been other articles written on the art of the trade so that is not our concern here. So if you can get Larry Johnson for Troy Brown and John Kitna then by all means go for it and you can stop reading. But if you can't, then (SOS) can help.

Below is the 2005 week 7 (SOS) table for QBs. Looking at this, it is readily apparent which QBs. have favorable matchups the remainder of the season: Holcomb, Leftwich, Frerotte, Bollinger and Hasselbeck The most obvious QB to target here is Hasselbeck Not only does he have one of the most favorable schedules remaining, but he also has the highest number of easy games remaining (5). He has one of the highest differentials in teams played and teams remaining as well as. This means Hasselbeck's averages should go up! Also, he has great matchups two out of the three playoff weeks if your playoffs are weeks 14-16. Lastly, he is in the most prolific offense of these QB options. Now you may already have Peyton Manning as your QB and will play him regardless of the matchup, but if you have a QB who is questionable from a week to week standpoint or in a situation where he is getting ready to face a tough (SOS) down the stretch, then now would be the ideal time to try and trade for the likes of Hasselbeck

Ultimate Strength of Schedule – Quarterbacks – Week 7

MY QB DILEMMA

In week 6 of last season, I began glancing at the (SOS) because I was not satisfied with my QB situation. I had traded away Brady for LJ earlier in the season and I was left with Vick. Vick's (SOS) was one of the worst in the playoff weeks 14-16 with two very difficult matchups. Not only that, but Vick's "Dif" and "Di16" were also within the 8 most difficult, which meant Vick's averages would probably go down. At that time, the Hasselbeck owner was utilizing him as a backup and starting Favre. Favre had put up pretty good numbers through 6 weeks averaging 250/2.4/1.6 (INTs only penalized -1 in this league whereas TDs garnered + 6). During the same time, Hasselbeck had only averaged 250/1.3/.7. Vick's numbers were worse than Hasselbeck's averaging 121/1.2/.6 while also averaging 50 rush yards/game (+1 for every 10 rush yd.'s, +1 for every 25 pass yd.'s). I immediately looked for an inroad with the Hasselbeck owner. Since Hasselbeck had a fairly difficult matchup in the upcoming week 7, I knew this owner was more than likely to continue starting Favre. I decided that now was the time to act as this owner would be more prone to let Hasselbeck go if he was still sitting on his bench AND this owner was still happy with Favre (who had a relatively poor (SOS) on the horizon). To my good fortune, it turned out that the Hasselbeck owner was looking to trade for a TE for the upcoming week. Ben Troupe had just come off an 8/67/1 performance (1 pt. per rec. in this league) and I had both Troupe and Gonzo and was getting ready to drop Troupe due to roster constraints. We agreed to the trade of Vick/Troupe for Hasselbeck

How did it all turn out? Hasselbeck put up serviceable numbers in weeks 7-12 averaging 222/1.2/1 (week 13 was an anomaly as the SEA DEF scored 3 TDs) and averaging 15.2 fantasy points/game. But in the playoffs he exploded averaging 226/3/.3 for 26.7 fantasy points/game. Vick held his own and put up pretty good numbers the remainder of the season in spite of tough matchups, but he was very erratic with 0 TD/2 INT performances in weeks 13 and 15. Hasselbeck ended up ranking 5th in this league while Vick finished ranking 8th. As for Favre, he rapidly declined and finished ranked 14th. While I might have expected more out of Hasselbeck during the remainder of the regular season, his numbers were still good, and he more than made up for this less than expected production by exploding in the playoff weeks 14-16 for 9 total TDs Between Hasselbeck and Vick, Hasselbeck had historically proven to be the more consistent of the two, so it was certainly the right move for me to make given what I knew. As for Favre, after starting the season 1,256/12/8 through week 6, his numbers were 2,366/7/20 for the remaining games of the season. So not only will (SOS) help tell you which player to target to acquire, it can also tell you which player you might want to unload while their value and performance are still high.

MINOR MOVES - WAIVER WIRE

You can just as easily monitor the (SOS) in order to plan ahead and grab guys from the waiver wire who could potentially produce in "spot duty" during a given week, or if you have built up quite a bit of a lead in your league, you can go ahead and roster guys from the waiver wire who might come up huge for you in the playoffs. The (SOS) will help you identify these players before they begin to pop up onto other (less diligent) owner's radar screens.

In my previous example where I traded for Hasselbeck, I still only possessed one QB so I needed a viable second option at QB in case Hasselbeck went down to injury. After the BYE weeks had all passed and I could concentrate on rounding out my lineup for the playoffs, I started looking at the QB (SOS). I really liked my lineup at this point and I felt like I could make a deep playoff run, so I did not want to go through the big ordeal of trying to trade for another QB, nor did I need to do this. I simply needed to find a good compliment to Hasselbeck's few poor matchup weeks. Enter Kurt Warner. Warner had recently been dropped and had several favorable matchups of his own remaining (actually having one of the best QB schedules left) and also had great matchups in playoff weeks 15 and 16 (week 16 was one of Hasselbeck's worst weeks remaining). Not to mention that Arizona was a pass first team. I grabbed Warner as my backup in week 11. I did not stop there. I continued to monitor the waiver wire week to week looking to see if any other QBs. might be dropped that would be a better compliment to Hasselbeck than Warner - always looking to improve my lineup. I never found a better compliment, so Warner remained on my team the remainder of the season. But this didn't have to be the case. Someone better could have been dropped. It always pays to monitor the waiver wire as well as the (SOS).

How did it turn out? I actually started Warner in week 13 and benched Hasselbeck since Warner apparently had the more favorable matchup. Warner did not put up stellar numbers (not like you would think against the 49ers DEF) producing 354/1/2. But oddly enough, week 13 was Hasselbeck's anomaly game where Seattle's DEF scored three TDs and there was no need or opportunity for him to produce. His stats for that game were a mere 98/1/0. So the Warner move auspiciously worked. In week 16, Warner was injured and did not play so I was forced to use Hasselbeck against the Colts DEF. This game ended up being meaningless for the Colts and Hasselbeck produced good numbers with 168/2/0. So no wonderful story here of how Warner saved my season, but Warner did have some great games down the stretch that could have been useful had Hasselbeck gone down. And to be honest, Hasselbeck performed so well down the stretch that it would have been hard in any other instance to bench him. Again, you try and put your team in the best position possible given what the (SOS) is telling you.

ODDS OF SUCCESS

You might at this point be prone to ask - "OK, you've given us instances of personal success, but why cannot these instances be attributed as "situational" in that you were lucky enough to have targeted the right players instead of chalking it up to the correct use of (SOS)?"

A fair question. To answer this, let's go back to the 2005 Week 7 (SOS) for WRs

Ultimate Strength of Schedule - Wide Receivers – Week 7

If we look a the top 8 teams with regard to easiest (SOS) remaining, and then we look at how the top WRs for each of these teams performed during their easy weeks according to the 2005 week 7 (SOS), we can get an idea of how well WRs perform during these weeks and how accurate the (SOS) might be from a fantasy production stand point.

Performance Table

From the above breakdown, we can see that there are a lot of stellar WR performances during these weeks. Out of all of these viable WR options from a fantasy standpoint, we see that out of (43) possible performances, (29) could be considered good production with the average performance being 5/89/1. If we reduce the requirement to only one WR from a team having to have a big game during these weeks, then a good to great performance occurred per team (29) out of (35) possible times. That's pretty good odds at attaining a WR that will produce in a given easy week. Again, our objective is to increase our chances of picking up a WR that could have one, or several, potentially great games. Most of all of these performances are coming from players who are more than likely already owned. Certainly Boldin and Fitzgerald will not be on the waiver wire as well as K. Johnson, Glenn, R. Moss, Jackson, Engram, Jurevicius, and S. Moss. So you would have to trade for these guys. That leaves Evans, Porter, & Brown. I saw all of these players available in just about all of my leagues late into the 2005 fantasy season. And each could have been claimed from the waiver wire and used during the "playoff push" for "spot duty" or during the playoffs themselves.

CONCLUSIONS

These are just a few of the numerous ways in which you can utilize the (SOS) to better prepare your team for the playoffs and the "playoff push". There are a vast number of scenarios that could play out and that allows you a lot of latitude in being creative to get the player(s) you want. While fantasy football is not always a precise science and there are no certainties, you can still use the numbers to put your team in the most favorable position to be successful and give your team the best chance of winning. The (SOS) allows you to see these scenarios beginning to develop before the other owners in your league know what's going on and allows you to dominate long after the draft and dominate when it matters most - the playoffs.