What Projections Say for Bears Schedule

Sharp Football Analysis is predicting an easy Bears schedule for 2023, but then again they said the same thing last year and it was the league's toughest.

USA Today

When the NFL schedule comes out each year, strength of schedule becomes important.

Everyone wants to look at degree of difficulty. Everyone wants to project wins.

There's a problem with projections and that is they are merely based on fantasy and not reality.

Sharp Football Analysis projects the Bears for 2023 will have the fifth easiest schedule based on Vegas over/under win total projections of opponents.

Well, that's one way to do it.

If you believe them, then you may also want to know Sharp Football Analysis said before last season that the Bears had the fourth easiest schedule based on projected win totals of opponents through the Vegas over/under line.

Were they accurate last year?

When the season ended, the Bears not only hadn't played one of the easier schedules, they had actually played absolutely the most difficult schedule in the entire NFL based on the number of real wins by their opponents in that season and not some projection for the future.

Their opponents had an actual .571 winning percentage and the Jets had played next toughest at a distant .538.

If you didn't use the Sharp Football Analysis system and simply used wins of opponents from the previous season to project how difficult the schedule would be, the Bears last year still didn't look to have a tough schedule going into it. They had the eighth-easiest or 24th toughest schedule with opponents at .471, or 135-152-2.

So neither method got close to forecasting what actually occurred.

The point is things change so much in the NFL from season to season, team to team and last year's numbers or last year's Vegas over/under win totals really are as valuable as the piece of paper they're printed on before being tossed in the garbage.

The Bears this year are supposed to play the 18th toughest schedule based on actual opponents winning percentages from last year at .497 (143-145-1) and not the over/under totals.

Take it with a grain of salt.

Some weaker teams from last year who are on their schedule will improve greatly. It always happens.

The bottom line is the Bears need to be one of the league's teams that improves greatly because the schedule ultimately is nothing they can do a thing about.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven