Midseason Report: Strength of Schedule

Do you ever get the feeling that your fantasy football team has the worst scheduling luck? Somehow your opponents' studs always have easy matchups and go off against you. They say it's supposed to even out over the long run. Is half a season long enough? Let's find out...

I. Methodology
The average weekly scoring total per team is fairly consistent at 110 fantasy points. If you're a stickler for details, it comes out out to an identical 109.9 for Markinson and Montoya, with Dufresne lagging slightly at 108.3.

The first value we need to get is the expected opponent score. To personalize this to each team, we tweak the overall league average by removing the individual team's scoring output from the calculation. Intuitively, if a team is a powerhouse scorer that props up the league average, one would expect its opponents to score less than the league average. This turns out to make only a slight difference, usually only +/- 1 point, topping out at -3 points for Dean, the current Starling leader.

Calculating the actual opponent score is a straightforward average of the weekly points against totals.

Subtract the actual opponent score from the expected opponent score, and we arrive at a SOS point differential. High number means you've got it made. Negative number means your opponents rise to the challenge and outdo themselves against you.

II. Results
Results are listed by league, in order of current standings.
- Opponent average: actual average point total by opposing teams
- SOS: differential between actual and expected opponent average score
- Color coding: cut off arbitrarily at 10 pts (green = good, red = bad)

Dufresne

Team	Opponent Average	SOS
Tsunami	109	-2
Pansies	114	-8
Millenium Falcons	106	3
Dunkel Weizen	92	17
Darby United	116	-8
Texas All Stars	107	2
Amer United	113	-4
FC Ocho Cinco	110	0

The results are less informative in Dufresne, where Eddy has enjoyed an extremely favorable schedule with opponents scoring on average 17 points less than expected, but hasn't been able to ride it to the top. Instead, Nalu enters the break with a 2 game lead at 6-1, largely due to some clutch performances, including 2 wins by less than 2 points and another win by less than 3 points.

Montoya

Team	Opponent Average	SOS
Proper Villains	87	22
Julius de la Berg	101	7
FC Hang	119	-10
Whoosh	109	1
Collateral Estoppel	110	0
Rapscallions	111	0
Da Big G	125	-14
Fantasia Orins	117	-6

In Montoya, Andrew reigns supreme in strength of schedule. His opponents average an anemic 87 points against him, with an opponent scoring over 100 points against him just a single time this season at 104. An expected average point differential of +5 has ballooned into +27 with some scheduling friendliness. On the flip side, Chang is hanging steady in 3rd place despite scoring fewer total points than his opponents while averaging 114 points per game. This aberration is due mostly to a couple beatdowns by 100 total points paired with some narrow victories. Gina, on the other hand, has had her work cut out for her, with opponents scoring an amazing 125 points per game against her, with nobody ever scoring less than 100. Likewise, Scott hasn't caught any scheduling breaks either, also with no opponent ever scoring less than 100 points.

Markinson

Team	Opponent Average	SOS
Da Big G	96	13
Dunken Weizel	102	8
Darby United	93	17
Julius de la Berg	120	-11
Amer United	121	-13
Texas All Stars	111	-2
Collateral Estoppel	106	5
Fantasia Orins	129	-18

Markinson has been a roller coaster ride, as evidenced by the fairly bunched standings. Not surprisingly, the top 3 teams have had the friendliest schedules, with Gina, Eddy, and Drew having opponents average 96, 102, and 93 points against them, respectively. The going has been tougher for myself and Amer; an expected average +6 and +17 point differential was slashed to -4 and +3, respectively, with opponents putting up an average of 120 points. Once again Scott runs into scheduling madness, with opponents averaging a ridiculous 129 points against him. To put that in perspective, that's on pace for 1808 points against, while it took only 1643 to win Starling last season.

III. Conclusions
Judging by the number of teams with favorable strength of schedule near the top of standings, particularly in Montoya and Markinson, the adage "it's better to be lucky than good" is holding true.

Hope your 2nd halves are both lucky and good, unless you are playing me. And especially not if you've already had the benefit of missing the following opponents due to bye: Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, DeAngelo Williams, Marion Barber, Frank Gore, Chris Johnson, and now Tom Brady to start the 2nd half. Freaking Andrew!!