Who has the toughest road to Super Bowl

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If you're getting tired of watching the Patriots play in the Super Bowl, then I have some bad news for you: Their streak of three consecutive appearances might not be ending this year and that's because out of all the teams in the NFL, New England has the easiest path to Super Bowl LIV, at least according to our scheduling formula.If your first thought after hearing that is that the Patriots always seem to have the easiest schedule, I don't disagree, and I ask that you send all complaints and conspiracy theories about that subject to Roger Goodell. I would send those for you, but he stopped answering my emails a long time ago.As for the Patriots' schedule, if you're wondering how we already know that they have ASAP Ferg Jersey  the easiest path to the , it's because we devised a formula and ranked every team's path to the game that's being played on Feb. 2, 2020. Basically, we looked at all 32 schedules, di sected all 256 regular-season games and studied the Super Bowl odds to figure out who has the most difficult schedule, and therefore, the toughest path to Super Bowl LIV in Miami.The easiest way to rank each schedule in the NFL is , but we decided to throw that out the window, because that's not exactly the most efficient way to rate schedule difficulty. Instead, we came up with our own formula to rank each schedule.  To devise our formula, we started by going through each individual game on each team's schedule, so we could rank the games based on difficulty. If you're wondering how that works, here's a quick example: Although all four teams in the AFC East will play the Steelers this year, not all the games are rated equally like they are in the strength of schedule formula.For instance, the Patriots open up the season at home against the Steelers, which means they have all offseason to prepare for Pittsburgh. On the other hand, the Dolphins have to hit the road to play the Steelers on a Monday night this season.From a strength of schedule standpoint, the game is the same: Both teams are playing the Steelers. However, the Dolphins game is viewed as more difficult in our formula since they'll be playing a Pittsburgh team that is 13-2 on Mondays under Mike Tomlin and has a Monday game at home with him as coach. Those individual nuances are factored into the schedule ratings.  After looking at schedule difficulty, we also  and that's Obi Toppin Jersey  because the oddsmakers in Las Vegas seem to know what they're doing. If you , the Patriots and Rams were the two favorites to play in Super Bowl LIII, and gue s who ended up playing in Super Bowl LIII? Yup, you gue sed right.Basically, the oddsmakers are smarter than you and they're smarter than me, so if they think your team's going to be a contender this year, then your team is probably going to be a contender, which is why we're using Super Bowl odds as part of our formula.The final part of the formula involves the first three games of the season. We weighted those three games slightly more than the other 13 games because they tend to be a good indication of how a team will play throughout the season. Basically, teams that go winle s in their first three games almost never make the Kenny Wooten Jersey  playoffs.  Since 1990, only four teams have started 0-3 and made the postseason (1992 Chargers,1995 Lions, 1998 Bills, 2018 Texans). Although the Texans pulled off the feat last year, there's a reason it's only happened four times in 29 seasons, and that's because it's nearly impo sible to pull off.Although an 0-3 start almost always means you'll mi s the postseason, 3-0 usually means good things in the NFL: From 1990 to 2010, 75.9 percent 3-0 made the playoffs. Those odds drop to 54.9 percent for 2-1 teams and 23.3 percent for 1-2 teams.This basically means that if your favorite team has a murderer's row in the first three weeks of the season, you should probably just give up on 2019 and start planning for the 2020 draft, and when I say that, I'm directly looking at fans of the Jaguars, Redskins and Dolphins, who have three of the most difficult early season schedules according to our formula. As a matter of fact, if you're a fan of one of those three teams, you might instead of reading on.  For everyone else, let's keep going.One other thing that's worth noting is that starting off the year with a winning record through the first three weeks has almost become a prerequisite for getting into a conference title game. Over the past four seasons, 15 of the 16 teams that took part in the AFC and NFC title games started the season at 2-1 or better. That doesn't nece sarily mean your favorite team will make it if they start 2-1, it just means they almost certainly won't make it if they start 1-2 or 0-3. (Since 2015, the one team that bucked this trend was the 2018 Patriots, but the Patriots have bucked a lot of trends over the years and it's unlikely that another Walter Frazier Jersey  team would be able to emulate them).On the other end of the schedule, the reason the final three games of the season aren't being given more weight is because the final games don't always mean the same for everybody, especially when a team is resting its starters. The Saints went 0-3 in their final three games in 2009 and still won the Super Bowl. The Ravens went 1-2 in their final three in 2012 and also won the Super Bowl. As for this year's Super Bowl, if these rankings are any indication, it's starting to look like we're going to end up with the Patriots and Eagles dueling it out in Miami. I'm sure everyone would love that, and by everyone, I mean no one outside of Boston or Philadelphia.  Without further adieu, let's find out who has the toughest road to Super Bowl LIV, starting with the Bears, who have the toughest road of all. Sorry, Bears fans.Toughest Road to Super Bowl LIVThe NFL clearly doesn't care that the Bears are celebrating their 100th anniversary this season, because Chicago got handed the most brutal schedule in the league this year. After going 12-4 last season, the Bears are almost certainly going to have a worse record this year, mostly because that's what pretty much happens to every team following a year where they go 12-4. From 2015 to 2017, 13 teams went 12-4 or better and out of those 13 teams, 12 of them had a worse record the next season. Of course, none of this is stopping Bears fans from betting big money on their team to win the Super Bowl this year.  More bets have been placed on the Bears to win the Super Bowl than any other team at multiple Las Vegas sportsbooks. The storys much different at East Coast sportsbooks. David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum)  The problem with betting big money on the Bears to win it  Patrick Ewing Jersey all is that it's basically the same as setting your money on fire, at least that's what Will Brinson told me.    Bears fans are mad at me because of this article I wrote. Spoke with and for the and on separate days, they both mentioned the Bears. Worth your time (unle s you're a Bears fan): Will Brinson (@WillBrinson)  Sched