2026 season

Green Bay Packers 2026 Strength of Schedule: Tied for 8th-Hardest in the NFL

The Green Bay Packers are tied for the 8th-hardest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 8.68 projected wins, and 9 of them are projected winning teams, 4 of those projected for 10 wins or more.

The latest Packers episode

Packers 17, Buccaneers 14 — Week 4: Three Fourth Downs on One Drive

What is left, through Week 5

The opponents the Packers have left rate minus 0.006 net expected points added per play between them — offence minus what their defences allow — which is 20th hardest of the 32 schedules that can be rated so far.

Through Week 5 · Data via nflverse · 12 of 12 remaining opponents rated

Green Bay Packers 2026 schedule

Green Bay Packers 2026 regular-season schedule with each opponent's projected strength and the rest days going into the game
WkOpponentOpp Strength (Aug)Kickoff ETRest
1at Vikings—Sun 4:25p7
2at Jets—Sun 1:00p7
3vs Falcons—Thu 8:15p4
4at Buccaneers—Sun 1:00p10 (+3)
5vs BearsWinningSun 4:25p7
6vs CowboysWinningSun 8:20p7 (-3)
7at Lions10+ winSun 4:25p7 (-7)
8vs Panthers—Thu 8:15p4
9at PatriotsWinningSun 4:25p10 (+3)
10vs Vikings—Sun 1:00p7 (+1)
11Bye week
12at Rams10+ winWed 8:00p10
13at Saints—Sun 1:00p11 (+4)
14vs Bills10+ winSun 8:20p7
15vs Dolphins—Sun 1:00p7
16at BearsWinningFri 1:00p5 (-1)
17vs TexansWinningMon 8:15p10 (-1)
18vs Lions10+ winSun 1:00p6 (-1)

Opponent strength is the opponent's 2026 market win total, bucketed: “10+ win” is a win total of 10.5 or better, “Winning” is 9.5 or better. Rest is days since that team last played, with the edge over the opponent in brackets. Kickoff times are Eastern and highlighted when the game starts at or after 8:00pm — the Packers have 6 primetime games, 1 of them on the road. The Packers are on bye in week 11.

Toughest stretch

Weeks 5-7: Bears, Cowboys, at Lions. Three straight projected winning teams, one of them projected for 10 wins or more.

Softest stretch

Weeks 1-3: at Vikings, at Jets, Falcons. None of the three is a projected winning team.

Primetime: 2026 night games

The Packers play 6 games at or after 8:00pm Eastern, 5 at home and 1 on the road — weeks 3, 6, 8, 12, 14, 17. That is against a league average of 3.4, across 55 night games on the 2026 calendar.

Counts are AS SCHEDULED. Flex scheduling moves games into and out of the evening windows during the season, so an in-season count is only current as of the last time this artifact was regenerated.

Rest: where the Packers sit

Across the 2026 season the Packers are down 2 days of rest on their opponents across the seventeen games. 2 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.

A rest gap only turns up in the record when it is bye-sized. Across regular-season games since 1999, a team coming off at least seven more days of rest than its opponent has won 53.6 percent (645 games); at a three-to-six day edge the rested team has won 49.6 percent, which is no edge at all. Rest is a margin, not a mover.

How this is measured

Opponent strength here is this season's net expected points added per play — a team's offence minus what its defence allows, through Week 5. The betting market stops quoting win totals once games are played, so the August line below is kept as a labelled prior rather than used as the ranking.

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.

Packers schedule questions

Do the Packers have a hard schedule in 2026?

By market win totals, yes. The Packers are tied for the 8th-hardest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 8.68 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 9 of those opponents are projected winning teams.

When is the Packers bye week in 2026?

The Packers are on bye in week 11 of the 2026 regular season.

What is the toughest stretch of the Packers 2026 schedule?

Weeks 5 through 7, when the Packers play Bears, Cowboys, at Lions — all three projected winning teams.

How many primetime games do the Packers have in 2026?

Six as scheduled — five at home and one on the road — counting every kickoff at or after 8:00pm Eastern. Flex scheduling can move games into and out of the evening windows.

Where the Packers rank

Green Bay Packers are tied for the 8th-hardest schedule of the 32. The Cardinals have the hardest at 9.32, the Lions the easiest at 7.79. All 32 schedules ranked.

Green Bay Packers podcast and season preview · Packers running back depth chart · All 2026 bye weeks

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Source: 2026 schedule and rest days via nflverse; opponent win totals via VegasInsider (BetMGM), August 24 2026. Updated Sep 3, 2026. How we verify our data.

Strength of schedule is the mean 2026 win total of a team's 17 opponents. Win totals are cited as a source, not republished as a dataset.

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