New York Jets 2026 Strength of Schedule: Tied for 30th-Hardest in the NFL
The New York Jets are tied for the 30th-hardest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 7.97 projected wins, and 10 of them are projected winning teams, 4 of those projected for 10 wins or more.
New York Jets 2026 schedule
| Wk | Opponent | Opp Strength | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Titans | 7 | |
| 2 | Packers | Winning | 7 |
| 3 | Lions | 10+ win | 7 |
| 4 | Bears | Winning | 7 (+1) |
| 5 | Browns | 7 | |
| 6 | Patriots | Winning | 7 |
| 7 | Dolphins | 7 | |
| 8 | Raiders | 7 | |
| 9 | Chiefs | 10+ win | 7 |
| 10 | Bills | 10+ win | 7 (+1) |
| 11 | Chargers | Winning | 7 (+1) |
| 12 | Dolphins | 7 | |
| 13 | Bye week | ||
| 14 | Broncos | Winning | 14 (+7) |
| 15 | Cardinals | 7 | |
| 16 | Patriots | Winning | 7 (+1) |
| 17 | Vikings | 7 | |
| 18 | Bills | 10+ win | 7 |
Toughest stretch
Weeks 9-11: at Chiefs, Bills, at Chargers. Three straight projected winning teams, two of them projected for 10 wins or more.
Softest stretch
Weeks 12-15: at Dolphins, Broncos, at Cardinals. Even here one of the three is a projected winning team — the Jets never get a genuinely soft run.
Rest: where the Jets sit
Across the 2026 season the Jets are down 9 days of rest on their opponents across the seventeen games. 4 games come at a rest deficit of three days or more, and 1 comes 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.
Jets schedule questions
Do the Jets have a hard schedule in 2026?
By market win totals, no. The Jets are tied for the 30th-hardest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 7.97 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 10 of those opponents are projected winning teams.
When is the Jets bye week in 2026?
The Jets are on bye in week 13 of the 2026 regular season.
What is the toughest stretch of the Jets 2026 schedule?
Weeks 9 through 11, when the Jets play at Chiefs, Bills, at Chargers — all three projected winning teams.
Where the Jets rank
New York Jets are tied for the 30th-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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