SalishHawkFan":28zdni5u said:
I thought the schedule was based upon who won the division and so forth. I thought it was set up so that the teams that won the division had harder schedules than the second who had it harder than 3rd place and so on.
That's part of the whole parity thing. The only part that's set up years ago is what divisions we go up against. So the Niners have to play the top teams that won their divisions and the Cards play the bottom teams of that division. Also a part of parity is who is home and who is away. At least, it's SUPPOSED to work that way I've always believed. Evidently, it doesn't anymore.
I think you misunderstand how it works.
We are scheduled, on a rotating basis, to play one NFC and one AFC division each year, all four teams. Home and away were at one time on a rotation, too, but I think they've messed with that on occasion.
Our "strength of schedule" games number 2, actually. We will play the 2nd place teams from the two divisions we are not scheduled to play this year.
The parity comes from the fact that each of our division rivals will play 12 games against the same opponents that we do (four common division opponents and 8 from the two divisions we play). So the games against common opponents tie-breaker has more games to base on for in-division rivals.