2026 Strength of Schedule

Steelers with the toughest schedule in the AFCN but overall not terrible. Bengals might put up a fight for the division given their schedule.

[note that Sharp's method of ranking is not last season's win totals]

 

triggered

 

Steelers are middle of the pack. Good place to be. Every year, there's teams who drastically improve (Seahawks, Colts)... and teams that drop off (Chiefs, Ravens)... so the schedule can get easier or more difficult.

 

Always a bridesmaid, never the bride.......lol

 

How does he do his then??

 

Let's see how the Patriots do with a closer to normal schedule this season.

 

And always the bridesmaid on the end, furthest away from the bride

 

One aspect now figured out. All that remains is the official schedule release. Once that is done, I can give out my season win loss prediction.

 

Of course it is, but if we all went with that, we wouldn't be able to post these sarcastic comments and memes.

 

Might have to chill on that a bit longer this year. Of course it's about TV money:

2026 NFL schedule release could be delayed by a week

The NFL schedule release has traditionally come in the second week of May.
By Sam Neumann on 05/04/2026
Mark your calendars. Or don’t, because the date might change.

The NFL schedule release, which has landed in the second week of May for the past five or six years running, could come a week later than usual in 2026. NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North appeared on the It’s Always Game Day in Buffalo podcast prior to this year’s NFL Draft — with his comments first reported by CBS Sports — and said that while the second week of May remains the league’s target, the third week is now firmly on the table.

“Most fans know full well that the schedule comes out in mid-May now,” North said. “That’s what we’ve done the last five or six years. That’s sort of our target. Is there any magic to May 12, 13, 14? No. Is there any real downside to May 19, 20, or 21? No. I don’t think it’s coming out in June, but that second week in May has been our target the last few years, but I don’t know that it’s impossible to think about that third week in May.”

The main complication is a five-game package that the league is negotiating separately with a streaming partner. YouTube is reportedly the frontrunner, with Netflix and Fox also in consideration. Until those talks are resolved and the games have a home, it’s not possible to build the full schedule around them.

“These five games that are out there as a package that are being negotiated right now — love to know when, where those games are going to be played so we can schedule them accordingly,” North continued. “We’ve got more international games than ever before. They’d sure like to know. There’s planning trips. We need to book hotels and charter airlines and anthem singers and frisbee dogs.”

As with most things NFL, the final word comes from one person.

“It doesn’t get finalized until the Commissioner of the National Football League says it’s finalized,” North added. “None of us know the date yet because we don’t know when we’re going to walk into the boss’s office and present him one. If we walk in there on May 11th or 12th and he’s not happy with where we are, he’ll send us back downstairs, and we’ll keep grinding. And if it slides to the 18th, 19th, or 20th, the world will keep spinning.”

This is all a bit of a sideshow to the larger media rights saga playing out behind the scenes. The NFL’s renegotiations with its five primary broadcast partners — CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, and Prime Video — have essentially stalled. The league is looking to roughly double its current rights fees; the networks are reportedly more comfortable with a 25% increase. NBC Sports president Jon Miller said as recently as last week that the NFL has not yet approached NBC about a new deal. The league has only formally engaged CBS, and those talks are far from finished. All signs point to new deals not taking effect until 2027.

To date, only two 2026 regular-season games have been officially placed: the 49ers at Rams in Australia on Sept. 10 and the Ravens at Cowboys in Brazil on Sept. 27. The rest is coming, just maybe not as soon as everyone hoped.

 

For a moment, I was worried that you'd report that the NFL was going to make a 6 hour special to be broadcast on ESPN or Amazon, where they release one team's schedule every 10 minutes. And during those 10 minutes they over analyze each team in order to

 

Sorry, some of us are looking at this on a little phone screen while trying to drive a tractor.

 

I already got money they won't make the playoffs this year.

 

LoL. I'm not now, I'm eating lunch, but I was yesterday, and don't worry, it's was only me with nobody in sight in the middle of a field, but it was still hard to read on the phone. LoL

 

That's a baby tractor. LoL, but yeah that can happen. Worst I've ever done was drowned one in a river. I was discing up a old sunflower field, and I couldn't see, and when I came through I was in the river. LoL.

 

beware of the shoestring stuck to the pedal

 

Blades up baby!!

 

Nice that we're in the meat of the distribution.

But I think it's reasonable to assume that one of BAL or CIN will be significantly better than they were last year. Unless both QBs miss a fair number of games again...which has happened fairly frequently.