While it may not be the end-all, be-all, strength of schedule is a major reason why some good teams might go 8-8. Conversely, 5-win teams of last year can ride a creampuff schedule to doubling their win total.

Finally. The NFL schedule release on Tuesday has a lot of anxious folks around the league wondering what kind of journey their team will have to make to have a shot come mid January. And I’m not just talking about fans. General managers, coaching staffs and players all take great interest on who they play, and when. Perhaps the most important game, at least from a league standpoint, is the Kickoff Game, which — since being instituted in 2002 — always comes on the Thursday night prior to Week 1′s Sunday games. Of course, it’s important that the NFL brandishes a sexy matchup, like last year’s Vikings-Saints tilt from the Big Easy. But perhaps more significant is how the clubs […]

With the 2011 NFL schedule release almost upon us, it should be interesting to see which teams will have the toughest road to Super Bowl XLVI. But while checking the home/away schedule and the non-division opponents gives us insight as to how difficult our favorite team’s path will be, sometimes the most overlooked facet of the NFL schedule is the obvious one: divisional games.