It’s an easy exercise to look at the Detroit Lions schedule for the 2020 season and instantly look back at what happened with all the foes in 2019. But that’s not necessarily the best way to determine the true strength of schedule for the Lions this coming season.
Sports data analyst Warren Sharp looked forward, not back, to create his strength of schedule calculation. Instead of looking at wins in 2019, Sharp used the projected win totals from a conglomeration of various sportsbooks for each team in 2020.
That approach helps the Lions achieve one of the top 10 easiest schedules…on paper. Detroit’s slate comes in 8th overall and the 2nd-easiest in the entire NFC, after the division rival Chicago Bears.
Playing the NFC East and AFC South, projected with the NFC North as the weakest top-to-bottom divisions based on win total odds, helps the Lions. Of course, Detroit’s win total projection at most sportsbooks is either 6 or 6.5, so they help some of those teams also achieve high rankings on Sharp’s strength of schedule metric.
