Why Dallas may have the toughest 2017 schedule

Since February, news of the Denver Broncos having the toughest schedule this upcoming NFL season has reached far and wide.

But according to one analyst, it appears the Dallas Cowboys are in for the biggest struggle – why Dallas may have the toughest 2017 schedule?

Cowboys and Broncos are conference rivals this year

When strength of schedule for all teams was released in February, the Broncos topped that list (147-107-2, .578). They will play against 8 teams that won 10 or more games in 2016.

The Cowboys were on the slate with the 10th most difficult SOS (134-118-4, .531). However, Dallas has the toughest SOS in the NFC East, just as Denver does in the AFC West.

History and stats say it’s going to be a battle

Now, according to NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal, Dallas may have the toughest 2017 schedule in football. A gloom-inducing combination of history and stats from 2016 make it so.

The Cowboys don’t exactly have a reputation for maintaining greatness two seasons in a row. Dallas hasn’t won double-digit games in two consecutive years since 1995-96. The usual pattern: A good year, followed by a bad year, a good year, a bad year, and so on.

Their non-conference games won’t make things easier

2016 was a good year – the team’s newest stars Dak Prescott and Ezekial Elliott helped propel them to the playoffs.

Whether the Cowboys can break their sad cycle and repeat last season’s success depends not only on their conference games but on their non-conference games too. They’ll be hit hard this coming season – playing against the AFC West’s Broncos and Chargers, though they too are in for a fight in 2017.

Those road games…

Just to make Dallas’ situation even tougher (hey, why not?), they’ll finish the regular season with three road games and only one home game against Seattle in December. Add to this the five primetime games, with the likelihood of being flexed into a sixth, and that equals insane travel weeks too.

In contrast, the Broncos are fortunate to have their first four games at home – quite an early advantage for them.

Strength of schedule does make a difference

As much as we’d like to believe SOS doesn’t matter, it does, at least to some degree. Along with the Cowboys, the Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants and Chicago Bears had the easiest schedules last season. And four of them made the playoffs.

Meanwhile in 2016, only two teams out of the eight with the most challenging schedules made the playoffs. One of them was the Atlanta Falcons who made it all the way to the Super Bowl. So no one should be fretting just yet.

The scheduling formula

Just as a refresher, John Breech of CBS Sports explains the NFL scheduling formula. Which was implemented in 2002.

Every team plays 16 games as follows:

Home and away against its three division opponents (six games).

The four teams from another division within its conference on a rotating three-year cycle (four games).

The four teams from a division in the other conference on a rotating four-year cycle (four games).

Two intraconference games based on the prior year’s standings (two games). These games match a first-place team against the first-place teams in the two same-conference divisions that the team is not scheduled to play that season. The second-place, third-place, and fourth-place teams in a conference are matched in the same way each year.

Beginning in 2010, a change was made to how teams are paired in the schedule rotation to ensure that teams playing the AFC West and NFC West divisions would not be required to make two West Coast trips (e.g., at Los Angeles Chargers and at Oakland), while other teams in their division had none (e.g., at Kansas City and at Denver).