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erics@netcom.com (Eric Smith) writes:

>Samster The HAMMER <ez043491@peseta.ucdavis.edu> writes:

>>kodax@ix.netcom.com wrote:

>>>The cowboys sneaked into the superbowl only because the niners were
>>>beaten by the packers.

>>Oh, and the Niners sneaked into the playoff because they played the
>>sixth-easiests chedule in the NFL, despite being defending champs. The
>>Niners just were not that good this year, pal.

>The Niners' opponents won 130 games this season. The Cowboys' opponents
>won 128. I guess the Cowboys really sneaked into the playoffs too.
>I don't believe that "sixth-easiests chedule" [sic] stat. The Niners'
>schedule was *way* tougher than the Steelers' or Chiefs' schedules,
>for example. The Chiefs' opponents won 120 games, and the Steelers'
>opponents just 116.

Just to follow uop on this, because I think it's a little bit interesting,
I did a quick calculation on all of the teams' opponents victories.
I originally gave both the Niners and Cowboys one extra opponent victory
(based on thinking Minnesota had won nine games when actually they won
eoght). As we can see, both the 49ers and Cowboys were about in the
middle of the pack considering the league as a whole, and both were in
the upper echelon of playoff teams (indicated by a '*'). I suppose it's
not surprising to find that playoff teams in general have worse schedule
strengths than non-playoff teams, because since they don't have to play
themselves they're probably getting teams with lesser records instead.
One can see some of the effects of the league's parity policies here -
for example the Giants, who finished 9-7 in 1994, ended up with a much
tougher schedule than their division rival Eagles, who had a 7-9 1994
record.

New York Giants 140
Oakland         139
San Diego       139 *
Arizona         138
Minnesota       138
Denver          135
St. Louis       135
New England     133
Cleveland       132
Tampa Bay       131
Chicago         130
Miami           130 *
Washington      130
New Orleans     129
San Francisco   129 *
Dallas          127 *
Detroit         127 *
New York Jets   127
Green Bay       126 *
Atlanta         125 *
Jacksonville    125
Cincinnati      123
Carolina        122
Houston         122
Seattle         122
Kansas City     120 *
Philadelphia    117 *
Buffalo         116 *
Indianapolis    116 *
Pittsburgh      116 *

-----
Eric Smith       |  "Sometimes it seems to me that plastic
erics@netcom.com |   surgery is ... very, very complicated."
CI$: 70262,3610  |   - Doctor Gaynor, in Ed Wood's "Jail Bait"