If you're looking for a surprise team to make the Super Bowl this year, here's a small bit of advice: Don't pick the .With the 2018 season right around the corner, now seems like a good time to figure out who has the toughest road to the , so that's exactly what we decided to do this week. Basically, we looked at all 32 NFL schedules, di sected all 512 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 LIII in Atlanta (Spoiler alert: It's the Giants).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 Jayson Werth Jersey 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 NFC West will play the this year, not all the games are rated equally like they are in the strength of schedule formula. More on the NFL One of the problems with using strength of schedule is that it doesn't factor where your playing a team home or away. For instance, in our NFC West example, the will get the Packers at home in October, while the will get them on the road in December. Although the strength of schedule formula counts both games the same, we don't. Under our formula, the Cardinals have it tougher because they're a dome-team that has to go to Lambeau Field in December, where it's almost impo sible to win. And when we say "almost impo sible," we actually mean "impo sible:" is 15-0 in his last 15 December home starts. On the other hand, the Rams get to play the Packers at home in October, which theoretically should give them a better chance to win. Basically, the Packers game is ranked as more difficult for the Cardinals than the Rams.After looking at schedule difficulty, we . If you've ever been to Las Vegas, you've probably noticed how nice everything is, and that's because the house always wins, then uses that money to build nice things like new hotels, and then you go to those new hotels and the house beats you some more. What I'm trying to say here is that the oddsmakers in Vegas are almost always right about everything, so if they think your team's going to be Roenis Elias Jersey 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 playoffs.If you need proof, just consider this Matt Adams Jersey : Since 1990, only three teams have started 0-3 and made the playoffs (1992 , 1995 , 1998 ).On the flip side of that, 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. You can look at last year's playoff field as proof of how important the first few games are: Of the 12 teams that made the postseason, only the (1-2) didn't have a winning record through the first three weeks of the year. The other 11 teams either started the year 2-1 or 3-0. In 2016, 10 of the 12 teams that made the playoffs started the season with a record of 2-1 or 3-0.This basically means that if your favorite team has a murderer's row over the first three weeks of the season, you should probably just give up on 2018 and start studying draft prospects for 2019, and if you decide to go the draft route, here's .The reason we're not giving the final three games of the season 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. 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 and the Packers dueling it out in Atlanta. And just for the record, picking the Packers to get to the Super Bowl is not a requirement here at CBS Sports, even though it's kind of starting to feel that way. With their early Super Bowl picks, both and Pete Prisco , which, by the way, will be televised by CBS.Without further adieu, let's find out who has the toughest road to Super Bowl LIII.Toughest Road to Super Bowl LIIIA total of 12 teams made the playoffs last year and the Giants will be playing five of those teams over the first seven weeks of the season. Our formula thinks that's a recipe for disaster. Of course, the silver lining here for Giants fans is that nothing could po sibly be more disastrous Shawn Kelley Jersey than last season.Schedule difficulty rating: 106.75 It's a good thing the Cardinals are getting back, because they're going to need his help if they're going to navigate their way through the second-most-brutal schedule in the NFL. Of the eight road games that Arizona will be playing this season, six of them will come against teams that finished 2017 with a winning record (Rams, , , , , Chargers). Oh, and that doesn't even include a December road game against Tanner Rainey Jersey the Packers. Not to mention, the Cardinals will be facing all this with a first-year coach and a quarterback who's never started a game for Arizona (either or ).Schedule difficulty rating:105.75After watching Jim Harbaugh and Andy Reid give up on , it might be time for us to give up on him, too. At least for this season. Not only did the already ( ), but they have the third-toughest schedule in the NFL, according to our formula. Three of the Redskins' final five games of the season will come against teams that made it to at least the conference championship game last year (at in Week 13, at in Week 15, Eagles in Week 17). If Smith somehow wills the Redskins to the playoffs, they should triple his salary for 2019, give him a key to Washington DC and let him make his own amendment to the Constitution. The wild thing is that an NFL quarterback making an amendment to the Constitution probably wouldn't even qualify as one of the top-five craziest things that has happened in DC lately.Schedule difficulty rating:103.00The award for toughest schedule in the AFC goes to the Chiefs, and it isn't really an award that anyone should want to win. Andy Reid has officially handed over the offensive keys to , and now, Reid is going to have to hope his new quarterback doesn't drive the offense off a cliff. A big reason the Chiefs schedule ranks so high here is because of their opening sl
