Los Angeles Chargers 2026 Strength of Schedule: Tied for 15th-Hardest in the NFL
The Los Angeles Chargers are tied for the 15th-hardest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 8.56 projected wins, and 11 of them are projected winning teams, 7 of those projected for 10 wins or more.
Los Angeles Chargers 2026 schedule
| Wk | Opponent | Opp Strength | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cardinals | 7 | |
| 2 | Raiders | 7 | |
| 3 | Bills | 10+ win | 7 |
| 4 | Seahawks | 10+ win | 7 |
| 5 | Broncos | Winning | 7 |
| 6 | Chiefs | 10+ win | 7 |
| 7 | Bye week | ||
| 8 | Rams | 10+ win | 14 (+7) |
| 9 | Texans | Winning | 7 |
| 10 | Ravens | 10+ win | 8 |
| 11 | Jets | 6 | |
| 12 | Patriots | Winning | 7 |
| 13 | Buccaneers | 7 (+1) | |
| 14 | Raiders | 7 | |
| 15 | 49ers | 10+ win | 4 |
| 16 | Dolphins | 10 (+3) | |
| 17 | Chiefs | 10+ win | 7 |
| 18 | Broncos | Winning | 7 |
Toughest stretch
Weeks 8-10: at Rams, Texans, at Ravens. Three straight projected winning teams, two of them projected for 10 wins or more.
Softest stretch
Weeks 1-3: Cardinals, Raiders, at Bills. Even here one of the three is a projected winning team — the Chargers never get a genuinely soft run.
Rest: where the Chargers sit
Across the 2026 season the Chargers are down 24 days of rest on their opponents across the seventeen games. 6 games come at a rest deficit of three days or more, and 2 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.
Chargers schedule questions
Do the Chargers have a hard schedule in 2026?
By market win totals, it is close to average. The Chargers are tied for the 15th-hardest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 8.56 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 11 of those opponents are projected winning teams.
When is the Chargers bye week in 2026?
The Chargers are on bye in week 7 of the 2026 regular season.
What is the toughest stretch of the Chargers 2026 schedule?
Weeks 8 through 10, when the Chargers play at Rams, Texans, at Ravens — all three projected winning teams.
Where the Chargers rank
Los Angeles Chargers are tied for the 15th-hardest schedule of the 32. The Cardinals have the hardest at 9.32, the Lions the easiest at 7.79. All 32 schedules ranked.
The weekly insights email. One story a week about what actually happened in the NFL — every number verified.
Every Chargers game, storied weekly.
The Muffed Chargers Show — free, in your podcast app.
Ask this data a question
Every figure on this page comes out of Muffed's verified panel — and you can query the whole thing in plain English. No account, no key. Ask the data →
Use Muffed in your AI
Ask Claude or ChatGPT football questions and get these verified figures back, with sources. Add https://muffed.ai/api/mcp — free, no account, no API key.