Detroit Lions 2026 Strength of Schedule: Easiest in the NFL
The Detroit Lions have the easiest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 7.79 projected wins, and 6 of them are projected winning teams, 1 of those projected for 10 wins or more.
Detroit Lions 2026 schedule
| Wk | Opponent | Opp Strength | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saints | 7 | |
| 2 | Bills | 10+ win | 4 |
| 3 | Jets | 10 (+3) | |
| 4 | Panthers | 7 | |
| 5 | Cardinals | 7 | |
| 6 | Bye week | ||
| 7 | Packers | Winning | 14 (+7) |
| 8 | Vikings | 7 | |
| 9 | Dolphins | 7 | |
| 10 | Patriots | Winning | 7 |
| 11 | Buccaneers | 7 | |
| 12 | Bears | Winning | 4 |
| 13 | Falcons | 10 (+3) | |
| 14 | Titans | 7 | |
| 15 | Vikings | 7 | |
| 16 | Giants | 8 | |
| 17 | Bears | Winning | 6 |
| 18 | Packers | Winning | 7 (+1) |
Toughest stretch
Weeks 10-12: Patriots, Buccaneers, Bears. two of the three are projected winning teams.
Softest stretch
Weeks 3-5: Jets, at Panthers, at Cardinals. None of the three is a projected winning team.
Rest: where the Lions sit
Across the 2026 season the Lions are up 1 day of rest on their opponents across the seventeen games. 3 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.
Lions schedule questions
Do the Lions have a hard schedule in 2026?
By market win totals, no. The Lions have the easiest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 7.79 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 6 of those opponents are projected winning teams.
When is the Lions bye week in 2026?
The Lions are on bye in week 6 of the 2026 regular season.
What is the toughest stretch of the Lions 2026 schedule?
Weeks 10 through 12, when the Lions play Patriots, Buccaneers, Bears — two of the three projected winning teams.
Where the Lions rank
That is the bottom of the league. At the other end, the Cardinals face the hardest at 9.32, a gap of 1.53 win-total points across the whole league. All 32 schedules ranked.
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