2026 NFL Strength of Schedule

Most strength-of-schedule tables published in the summer rank opponents by what they did last season. That measures the past, and it carries every bit of luck a team had — a 12-5 record built on one-score wins counts the same as a 12-5 built on point differential. This table uses the betting market's 2026 win total for each opponent instead, which is a forward projection that already accounts for the draft, free agency and coaching changes.

Read the spread before the ranks. From hardest to easiest the whole league covers about 1.5 win-total points across seventeen games — real, but small enough that schedule should break a tie between two players you rate evenly rather than move anyone up a round.

Ranks tie, and they tie a lot. Every win total in the market ends in a half-win and every schedule is seventeen games, so two schedules that genuinely differ do so by a multiple of about 0.06 of a projected win — which is why 24 of the 32 teams below share a rank with at least one other team, marked T. Tied teams are listed in order of how many 10-plus-win opponents they draw, but that is display order, not a ranking: their schedules are equally hard by this measure.

How this is measured

Opponent strength here is the betting market's 2026 win total, not last season's record — a forward projection that already prices in the draft, free agency and coaching changes, and that carries none of the luck baked into a won-lost record.

The Arizona Cardinals have the hardest schedule and the Detroit Lions the easiest. Every other team sits inside 1.53 win-total points of those two.