Buffalo Bills 2026 Strength of Schedule: Tied for 20th-Hardest in the NFL
The Buffalo Bills are tied for the 20th-hardest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 8.38 projected wins, and 11 of them are projected winning teams, 4 of those projected for 10 wins or more.
Buffalo Bills 2026 schedule
| Wk | Opponent | Opp Strength | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texans | Winning | 7 |
| 2 | Lions | 10+ win | 4 |
| 3 | Chargers | Winning | 10 (+3) |
| 4 | Patriots | Winning | 7 |
| 5 | Rams | 10+ win | 8 |
| 6 | Raiders | 6 | |
| 7 | Bye week | ||
| 8 | Ravens | 10+ win | 14 (+7) |
| 9 | Vikings | 8 | |
| 10 | Jets | 6 | |
| 11 | Dolphins | 7 | |
| 12 | Chiefs | 10+ win | 4 |
| 13 | Patriots | Winning | 10 (+3) |
| 14 | Packers | Winning | 7 |
| 15 | Bears | Winning | 6 |
| 16 | Broncos | Winning | 6 (+1) |
| 17 | Dolphins | 9 (+2) | |
| 18 | Jets | 7 | |
Toughest stretch
Weeks 3-5: Chargers, Patriots, at Rams. Three straight projected winning teams, one of them projected for 10 wins or more.
Softest stretch
Weeks 9-11: at Vikings, at Jets, Dolphins. None of the three is a projected winning team.
Rest: where the Bills sit
Across the 2026 season the Bills are up 14 days of rest on their opponents across the seventeen games. 0 games come at a rest deficit of three days or more, and 3 come with a three-day edge the other way. Rest is zero-sum across the league — every day one team is rested is a day its opponent was not — so these net out to nothing across all 32 teams.
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.
Read the spread before the rank. Across the whole league, hardest schedule to easiest covers about 1.5 win-total points spread over seventeen games — real, but small. Every win total in the market ends in a half-win and every schedule is seventeen games, so two schedules one place apart in the table differ by about 0.06 of a projected win, which is why 24 of the 32 teams share a rank with somebody else. Strength of schedule is a tiebreaker between two teams you already rate evenly. It is not a reason to move one of them.
Bills schedule questions
Do the Bills have a hard schedule in 2026?
By market win totals, it is close to average. The Bills are tied for the 20th-hardest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 8.38 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 11 of those opponents are projected winning teams.
When is the Bills bye week in 2026?
The Bills are on bye in week 7 of the 2026 regular season.
What is the toughest stretch of the Bills 2026 schedule?
Weeks 3 through 5, when the Bills play Chargers, Patriots, at Rams — all three projected winning teams.
Where the Bills rank
Buffalo Bills are tied for the 20th-hardest schedule of the 32. The Cardinals have the hardest at 9.32, the Lions the easiest at 7.79. All 32 schedules ranked.
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