One of the overlooked factors in any team's season is how the relative strength of their opponents can affect their records.  It stands to reason that if you are a mid-level team and play the bottom of the barrel teams, this should inflate your record, given that you are playing lesser teams.  Same holds true if you play only elite teams, your record would probably indicate you are worse than you truly are, given the level of competition.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers rolled into last season with a strength of schedule (SOS) that fell somewhere in the middle of the league.  One major caveat to strength of schedule as it is viewed before the season starts; it's completely based on the prior year's results.  This doesn't account for surprise teams or any deviation from the previous year.  For example, in 2008, most of Miami's opponents, based on strength of schedule, saw an easier run during the year.  Miami had been a doormat in 2007, going 1-15.  So every team that faced them had a strength of schedule brought down by Miami's 2007 season.  Obviously, Miami did much better in 2008, giving their opponents a much more difficult challenge than their SOS would indicate.

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To clear up any discrepancies, SOS is calculated by taking all opponents wins and dividing by total games, thus giving you the win percentage of the respective team's opponents.  The Bucs SOS going into 2008 was .469.  The teams they were facing were collectively under .500 in 2007 which was good for the 19th hardest schedule. 

The schedule ended up being a bit more difficult by looking at 2008 results.  By calculating the win % based on a completed 2008 season the Buc's schedule had a win % or SOS of .480, slightly higher than projected.  What does this mean?  Truthfully, it shows the schedule was a bit more difficult than anticipated, but nothing egregious.  The Bucs were helped by playing the second worst division in football (the AFC West, second only to the NFC West).  I'll cover a more in-depth look at the schedule later, but want to come back to SOS and the 2009 season.

The Bucs have the 4th hardest schedule going into the year with a .580 SOS.  The NFC South actually has the toughest go of it this year, with each team in the NFC South falling in the top 8 with respect to SO (Carolina is 2nd with .592, Atlanta is 4th with .588 and New Orleans is 8th with .557).

How will the Bucs fare?  this obviously depends on too many factors to list.  For what its worth, Pittsburgh apparently had the toughest schedule last year (.598 pre-season, .519 after 2008 season) and still went to and won the Super Bowl, proving that SOS is not a predictive tool, more of a media tool to create conversation.

The SOS should be taken with a grain of salt.  It is based on the thought that each team will perform exactly similar to the year prior, which is very unlikely to happen.  It also doesn't figure home/road games and how teams perform historically in those venues.  We all know that the Bucs haven't fared well in cold weather, but there is no increase/decrease in our SOS to compensate for any late season cold weather games.  SOS is merely a representation of how a season would play out in a controlled environment, which doesn't exist in the football universe.

In the end, SOS can give you a glimpse into a season, but hardly tells the whole story.  The true story can come from looking back after the season and seeing how your team fared based on that respective season.  We know going into 2009 that the road appears tough (.580), but we won't know how difficult (or easy) our schedule is until the season is completed.