When the 2019 NFL schedule , no team was more upset than the . coaches don't usually complain about their schedules in public, but that didn't stop Bruce Arians from ripping the league after the Bucs were (Just as a refresher: The Bucs schedule includes a span where they'll go 49 straight days without playing a single game in Tampa)."Am I ," Arians said of the schedule in April. "I think it's ridiculous, and I voiced my opinion to the people in New York."Although the Bucs got the short end of the stick when it comes to certain parts of their schedule, it's not all bad news for Tampa: According to our ratings, the Bucs actually have the easiest schedule in the NFC South this year. According to our formula, not only do the Bucs have the easiest schedule in the division in 2019, but they also have the third-easiest schedule in the NFC. With the regular season still three months away, you might be wondering how we already know that the Bucs have the third-easiest schedule in the NFC, and that's because we went ahead and ranked all 32 schedules.The easiest way to rank each schedule in the NFL , but the problem with going that route is that it's not exactly the most efficient Andre Burakovsky Jersey way to rate schedule difficulty, which is why we went ahead and devised a formula.So how does this formula work? Glad you asked.First, we looked at odds from the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook. Since the oddsmakers in Vegas seem to know what they're doing, we incorporated their odds into our formula, which worked out well for the Bucs, who will play multiple teams this year that aren't really viewed as Super Bowl contenders in Vegas (Detroit, NY , Arizona, Tenne see, Carolina x 2) Another part of the formula is the first three games of the season. Those are going Lucas Johansen Jersey to be weighted slightly more than the other 13 games because they tend to be a good indication of how a team will play throughout the year. Basically, teams that go winle s in their first three games almost never make the playoffs. Since 1990, only four teams have started 0-3 and made the postseason (1992 ,1995 , 1998 , 2018 ). 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. One team to keep an eye on through the first three weeks is the , and that's Aaron Ness Jersey because their first three games of the year rank as the most difficult opening stretch for any team in the NFL.Of course, the Saints have a much more manageable schedule after those opening games, so starting at 1-2 or 0-3 might not be the end of the world. Actually, maybe it will be, and that's because 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 , but the Patriots have bucked a lot of trends over the years and it's unlikely that another 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 went 1-2 in their final three in 2012 and also won the Super Bowl. Finally, each individual game on each team's schedule is also being ranked based on difficulty. For instance, the Saints have to travel to Seattle to face the this season. On the other hand, the get to play the Seahawks at home.From a strength of schedule standpoint, the game is the same: Both teams are playing the Seahawks. However, the Saints game against Seattle is viewed as more difficult in our formula, because they have to go on the road to face a Seahawks team that's 29-11 at home over the past five seasons. On the other hand, the Falcons will get to host a Seahawks team that has been somewhat beatable on the road over the past few seasons (Seattle is 12-11-1 away from home since 2016). Those individual nuances are factored into the schedule ratings. Alright, that's enough rambling, let's get to these rankings.Wait, one more thing, here's how things are going to work with our schedule rankings: On Tuesdays and Thursdays over the next few weeks, we'll be going division by division to rank every schedule in the NFL. After hitting the AFC over the past two weeks --you can , , and -- we'll be moving on to the NFC this week with and NFC South (June 27). We'll then close things out during the first week of July with the NFC North (July 2) and NFC West (July 4). Ranking the NFC South Michal Kempny Jersey schedules 4. Tampa Bay BuccaneersSchedule difficulty rating:95.00Overall NFL schedule difficulty ranking: 26thEasiest stretch: The Buccaneers have a chance to get off to a hot start in 2019 and that's because their easiest stretch will come during the first three weeks of the season. First, the Bucs get to open at home against the , which is good for two reasons. The first reason is that might still be working off a little rust since he'll be playing his first game back since tearing his ACL. The other reason is that the 49ers tend to struggle in the Eastern Time Zone. Since 2015, the 49ers have gone 0-12 in eastern time, which includes a 27-9 lo s to Tampa last season. After opening against San Francisco, the Bucs will play their only primetime game of the year on a Thursday in Week 2 (at Carolina). After that, the Bucs will then have 10 days to prepare for a home game against the Giants. Roughest stretch:Someone in the NFL scheduling department must really dislike Bruce Arians, because that's the only way to explain the schedule Tampa was given for the upcoming season, which is Arians' first with the team.As you may or may not have heard, the Buccaneers were handed one of the worst traveling schedules in the NFL this year. Not only will they go 49 days without playing a game in Tampa, but during that span, their schedule is absolutely brutal. Here's what the six weeks away from Tampa will look like: at (Week 4), at Saints (Week 5) Martin Fehervary Jersey , (London