Schedule is significant to a team's Super Bowl run.

Merril Hoge

Fiction: The schedule is overrated. Everybody compares the strengths and weaknesses of a schedule based on how the teams played last year. But there's so much change in this league that teams completely change year in and out. One team that played poorly last year may have a blockbuster this year. With the increased parity, there's no cake walks in the NFL. Everyone will have their share of difficult teams to play and some teams will get teams when they're not playing their best, or vice-versa. Everyone plays 16 games, and those 16 games won't be harder for one than the other when it's weighed out in the end.

Sean Salisbury

Fact: One, if a team has an easy schedule, then presumably they should have a couple of blowout wins where they can rest starters late in the game. This allows players to have fresher legs late in the season and in the playoffs when any edge is huge. Second, in the NFL winning breeds winning and piling up easy wins will increase a team's confidence. For instance, last season the Tennessee Titans started the season off 1-4 and the team's owner stated that Jeff Fisher was being out-coached. The Titans then defeated two "easy" teams in Cincinnati and Jacksonville, which gave them the confidence to get on a roll. The Titans ended up winning 10 of their last 11 regular season games and contended for the AFC championship. But as relevant as schedule is, if a team is good it shouldn't matter because it should be able to beat anybody.