2023 NFL schedule release: Strength of schedule based off future win-total odds

We have said it time and time again: More times than not, when you want to know what’s going to happen in sports, just take a look at the sportsbooks.

Sure, most people love the story of an underdog, but the reason why those tales are special is because they happen far less frequently than not. I mean, how many people were rooting for Goliath to slay David?

What does all this lead-in have to do with anything, you ask? Yes, you clicked on this story for a reason, and that reason is to see a list of NFL strength of schedules for the upcoming 2023 season.

With the release of the official schedule coming out Thursday in full, we have decided to jump the gun, since we know where every team will be playing this year. We created our own formula based on future win totals from odds in the market as of late Tuesday, May 9.

How did we do it? Well, it is simple. Sort of.

We took the projected wins from each team and either raised their number fractionally based on the “juice” toward the over total. Then, we adjusted the number for each team’s schedule based on whether they were home or away (or playing across the pond at a neutral site), and we divided by 17 to get a projected average win total of the teams’ opponents.

OK, so maybe it’s not so simple.

“Hey dummy, just get to the results. That’s all we care about.”

Well, all you had to do was ask. But just in case you want the exact formula, here it is for each opponent:

For home opponents: (Projected wins) +/- (.05 for each $10 deviated from -110) X .88

For road opponents: (Projected wins) +/- (.05 for each $10 deviated from -110) X 1.12

Total rating: Add total of 17 opponents / 17

NOTE: We multiplied .88 for home opponents and 1.12 for road opponents because, over the past 10 seasons, home teams win approximately 56 percent of the time (0.56 X 2 is 1.12 and 0.44 X 2 is 0.88). In other words, the total rating is supposed to represent the projected number of wins by all opponents.