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5/11/2008
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The 2005 NFL Schedule:
Your Roadmap to Success
 by Greg Alan
4for4.com

 

Each season a number of NFL scheduling oddities appear. The 2005 season is no exception. If you're a serious Fantasy Football owner, you'll want to consider every edge possible -- including scheduling anomalies.

Learn how to use "Hot Spots" to target waiver wire pickups, craftily time trades and optimize your roster for the playoffs.

In this article, 4for4.com’s Greg Alan breaks down the 2005 NFL schedule. You’ll find vital tactics that can positively change your outlook and lead to big results.


Folks, to win your league championship, you must get hot at the end of the season!
 

All your research during the summer will fail to net a championship if you run out of gas during your Fantasy playoffs.

LESS EFFORT + MORE RESULTS = A MUST DO
Many Fantasy strategies and tactics often require tons of preparation and often result in rather minimal gain. However, leveraging “Hot Spots” requires little time and often yields a big upshot. Sound good? Buckle up, let’s dig in…

In truth, having just one or two favorable add-on scheduling match-ups during your playoffs is often all it takes to gain an edge -- and walk off with a championship.

In this article, I make a case for the phrase "Timing is Everything." Keep that theme in mind this season. If you wisely leverage the NFL schedule, you'll be able to cleverly time trades, artfully target waiver wire pickups and most importantly, optimize your roster for the playoffs.

Even if your draft doesn't go well, by leveraging "Hot Spots" you'll be turning negatives into positives and strengthening your team.

We’ll start out with some traditional Strength of Schedule (SOS) research. In addition, I'll offer up a few observations. 

I'll also share the initial 4for4.com 2005 Defense Team rankings. We'll integrate these rankings into the 2005 NFL schedule. Then, we'll build a roadmap and flag some "Hot Spots." Here, we'll pay particular attention to the final few weeks of the NFL regular season -- Fantasy Football playoff time.

 

In addition, we’ll review the 4for4.com Team Defense “Hot Spots” -- a great time saver in helping plan out your Team Defensive starts.

But, before we dig in, I need to get everyone on board and talk about how important the NFL schedule is when it comes to winning your Fantasy Football Championship.

Case Study No. 1 - Chris
Schussman wins big in WCOFF
Back in 2002, despite drafting Vinny Testaverde and Shane Matthews as his starting QBs and fielding a draft day roster that claimed Rod Gardner as a No. 1 receiver, the WCOFF league champion, Mr. Chris
Schussman, walked away with a cool $200,000 grand prize. How did he do it? Plain and simple, he got red-hot in the playoffs starting in Week 13. As it turns out, each of his first three draft picks had green (good) "Hot Spots" in the WCOFF playoffs. All three of his top picks delivered when it counted the most, and Chris walked away a huge WCOFF winner!

Case Study No. 2 – Greg Alan goes 53-0!
That same year, I competed in an 11-team private Fantasy league. In this auction/draft league I faced long time rivals, several of whom I consider to be among the strongest Fantasy Football players in the world. Because I built my roster around the 4for4.com "Hot Spots" I was literally unstoppable after mid season. In fact, I was the highest scoring team six weeks in a row! As a result, coming down the stretch I posted a head-to-head record of 53-0, dominated the playoffs and walked off with another championship.

Case Study No. 3 – Jim McVicar plans and wins FFTOC
The 2004 FFTOC Champion, Jim McVicar, summed it up this way, “
Doesn’t it always seem the same guys have the most luck each year.  I would wager that they are the same guys that are spending mega hours doing research.  It seems the harder you work the luckier you get. I started working on (and planning out) my lineups for last year in May just as I have this year… I really can’t wait for this season to begin.”  Turns out, Jim saved and planned to use Culpepper, McGahee, Lee Evans and Randy Moss in the final week of the FFTOC playoffs. All those players had easy match-ups, giving McVicar the points he needed to win the FFTOC title.

After all the draft day strategy, all the player evaluations and preseason analysis, the fact remains -- if you want to win a big-time national contest like WCOFF or the FFTOC you need to get hot at the end of the season. If you don't get hot at the end, your chances of winning it all are slim. The same is true in most local leagues -- you must end very strong.

Next, I'll address specifics about the 2005 NFL season. I'll focus on actionable tips and things you can use. 

Strength of Schedule (SOS)
To kick things off, we'll start by examining opponents' win-loss records from the prior season. As is the case with much SOS data, you'll want to use caution and good reasoning, especially if your SOS analysis completely hinges on performance from last year.

I'd strongly suggest you steer clear of fragmented stats derived solely from last year's data. As much as I love analysis, Fantasy managers that drill down into measures like "Yardage Allowed to a TE" and "Opponent's Red-zone FG accuracy" often miss the big picture. These studies often lack predictive rigor. Measures like "Yardage Allowed to an Opposing No. 3 WR" rarely hold up from year-to-year.

Rather than generate a stack of metrics based on last year's data, the trick is to look for significant outliers and shifts from the prior season. That’s exactly what Table I does for us.

Table I -
2005 Strength of Schedule
(ranking on change from 2004 to 2005)

 

Rank
(schedule going
easier to harder)

Team

%Change from 2004 to 2005

2005 Opponents
Prior to Season

2004 Opponents
Prior to Season 

2003 Opponents
Prior to Season

1

ARI

-7.4

0.449

0.523

0.443

2

STL

-6.7

0.445

0.512

0.457

3

SEA

-5.9

0.457

0.516

0.443

4

SF

-4.1

0.471

0.512

0.451

5

WAS

-2.7

0.465

0.492

0.537

6

PHI

-1.9

0.453

0.472

0.541

7

MIN

-1.6

0.480

0.496

0.478

8

CHI

-1.6

0.480

0.496

0.48

9

GB

-1.2

0.496

0.508

0.449

10

NO

-1.2

0.492

0.504

0.52

11

JAX

-1.2

0.504

0.516

0.537

12

HOU

-0.6

0.504

0.51

0.533

13

DET

-0.4

0.488

0.492

0.473

14

IND

-0.4

0.504

0.508

0.518

15

CAR

0

0.492

0.492

0.524

16

TEN

0.6

0.492

0.486

0.524

17

DAL

0.8

0.477

0.469

0.541

18

TB

0.8

0.492

0.484

0.539

19

NYG

0.8