I think the real answer is somewhere in the middle.
Teams typically aren't as good or bad as the 16 game schedule. They're usually as good as their last 4-5 games imho. And the teams that appear to be lucky are often the better team - playing better football at the right time.
I think you would have to take a look at regular team performance in the last quarter of a season relative to quality of schedule.
I think we'd be better off playing all the best teams in the first 2 quarters of the season to show us how hard we need to work and how much we need to press to improve going into the second half.
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