How dafaq do the pats have an easier schedule than us year after year after year... fuck division, they just went to the super bowl for the third time in four years yet they have ANOTHER BS schedule while after a 0-16 campaign have another top five schedule,... this. Is. Bullshit.
The Browns already played the Saints, Steelers and Ravens and still have the 2nd most difficult schedule remaining according to FPI... this after an 0-16 record... lol
I feel like the AFC North is consistently getting the shaft on cross-division and cross-conference scheduling, but that's probably just paranoia.
After all, we know there's no way that Goodell would deliberately slight his beloved Steelers lol.
I'm encouraged by the Bengals 4-1 start (I tried telling you there was no way they'd be a bottom-dweller like everyone seemed to think), but there's plenty of time for things to trend to 7-9/8-8 pending injuries.
One good thing is that they don't have any primetime games the rest of the way (pending flex scheduling), so Dalton won't be imploding on national TV prior to the playoffs lol. That's good for saving a win or two.
Since this has been mentioned multiple times, the NFL schedules are designed to create as much parity as possible. There's no randomness involved. Besides two opponents, you already know your schedules going forward in the future:
6 games: divisional games
4 games: games against rotating division in your conference
4 games: games against rotating division in the opposing conference
2 games: games against teams in divisions of your conference who finished in the same place as the standings as your team last year (i.e. Browns play the 4th-place finisher in other AFC divisions).
Edit since I'm sure it's coming:
Brady vs. the AFC East: 76-21 (78.4%)
Brady vs. the AFC North: 31-7 (81.6%)