[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

As someone who was around the last time the match scheduling algorithm attempted to account for strength of schedule, NO. Just NO. 2007 was AWFUL. Yes, these caps are required.

The gripe is about favorable/unfavorable schedules. If you try to balance out the competitive levels of teams, you're inherently creating favorable/unfavorable schedules. This is exactly what happened in 2007. Older teams had unfavorable schedules, and younger teams had favorable ones. By trying to solve the problem, you're essentially enshrining the problem.

And as a technical point, only the NFL accounts for previous seasons' results in determining the schedule. And that's a relatively minor factor (it influences only 2 games of the 16 on each team's schedule). Conferences/divisions (which are geographically based) are the driving factor in the other 14 games of the NFL schedule, and the lone factor in the NBA, MLB, and NHL schedules.

NFL teams play each other once unless in divisions (or playoffs)

I do think there is a solution....

NO duplicates
Also too many pairings/facings of "known powerhouse teams" should be schedule avoided until eliminations

Powerhouses don't really need that much help to rank high nor is it good for younger teams to face "near certain doom" twice in a competition hence my no duplicate suggestion

Powerhouse teams will not be left on the bench either they will nearly always be selected regardless. Most other teams not as much.