We’ve taken a look at NFL win-totals in evaluating strength of schedule for NFL teams this season, but I also would like to use overall defensive rankings to evaluate strength of schedule as well. Win totals are useful, especially when looking at the big picture, but it’s also good to single out defenses to predict how they’ll play in 2024.

The New England Patriots have one of the fewest win-totals in the league, but they also have a defense that should be above average with a chance to be great this season. This makes a Patriots matchup in a strength of schedule grid look easy for a win, but that doesn’t mean the offense playing the Patriots defense will put up huge numbers. Of course, a below-average team overall is likely to be a better matchup than one that can get you playing from behind against a good defense, like Kansas City and San Francisco. But, it is still worth looking at some defenses that should be bad this upcoming season that may have Vegas win totals that keep them out of the “easy matchup” category.

2024 team defense rankings

There isn’t a formula or odds of any kind that can give you good predictable rankings for NFL defenses, which makes this endeavor less controlled than using win-totals, but, we shall persist. The only metric I’ve decided to use is DVOA, as it doesn’t just take the whole 2023 season and weigh each game the same. DVOA keeps its data as up-to-date as possible while weighing recent plays more important than early in the season. I then take my own thoughts on offseason moves and do my best to rank the defenses. As the offseason goes on, I’ll also work to break these rankings out into run and pass defense. Here is my first try for overall defense:

These rankings, when put into a schedule grid and compiled to then form strength of schedule rankings are quite different than what you’ll see in other strength of schedule numbers. I believe more focus on defense should be more predictive for fantasy than win-total SOS overall.

The Bengals show one of the widest discrepancies, as they face some of the toughest defenses in the league this season, but they also have many winnable games. Probably the biggest difference is in their division, as the Bengals play the Browns and Steelers twice, whose current win-total over/unders are at 8.5 wins. I have the Browns ranked first and the Steelers seventh in the defense rankings, while an 8.5 win-total puts them more in the middle of the pack when calculating strength of schedule.

Here is the win-total SOS in comparison to my defensive SOS in overall (weeks 1-17) and playoffs (weeks 15-17).

The higher the number, the easier the matchups, be it due to low win-totals or bad defensive rankings. With a quick overview, you can see some huge swings from win-total vs. d-ranking SOS. The Bengals, Dolphins, Chargers, Colts, Jets, Jaguars, and Broncos all have at least a 10+ swing from easy to hard going from win-total to d-ranking, while the Vikings, Patriots, Cowboys, Lions and Ravens all have a 10+ swing from tougher to easier. I believe that is bad news for the former and good news for the latter.

If we look at just Weeks 15 through 17, the playoff weeks, we see the Broncos, Patriots, Commanders, Titans, Vikings and Browns with easier playoff schedules using the d-rankings, and the Jaguars, Bills, Chiefs, Eagles, and Packers with tougher playoff schedules.

Now, let’s take a look at the overall schedule grid using my defensive rankings.

The NFC South remains a good division if you want to play poor defenses, as four of the five easiest schedules using this method come from that cesspool. Good thing the Falcons went all in on a QB this offseason! I mean, two QBs!

The Texans schedule remains difficult no matter how you look at it, as they rank first (the worst) in this method and fourth using win-totals. That double confirmation does make me worry about C.J. Stroud and company making another big leap, even with the addition of Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon. The Bills are in a similar situation, but they’re the ones that lost Diggs and will go with a rookie replacement, This could be a tough season in Buffalo, at least compared to expectations.

The NFC South SOS got slightly better with this method and it was already quite good. The Buccaneers appear to have gotten the biggest boost, while all four also have good fantasy playoff schedules. There is reason to feel good about grabbing players from this group, especially when they should, on average, be cheaper in drafts than other divisions.