2026 season

San Francisco 49ers 2026 Strength of Schedule: Tied for 25th-Hardest in the NFL

The San Francisco 49ers are tied for the 25th-hardest schedule in the NFL for 2026: their 17 opponents average 8.27 projected wins, and 9 of them are projected winning teams, 6 of those projected for 10 wins or more.

The latest 49ers episode

49ers 24, Broncos 14 — Week 4: A Fumbled Punt, Then Kittle

Read

What is left, through Week 5

The opponents the 49ers have left rate plus 0.010 net expected points added per play between them — offence minus what their defences allow — which is 12th hardest of the 32 schedules that can be rated so far.

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

San Francisco 49ers 2026 schedule

San Francisco 49ers 2026 regular-season schedule with each opponent's projected strength and the rest days going into the game
Wk	Opponent	Opp Strength (Aug)	Kickoff ET	Rest
1	at Ramsneutral site	10+ win	Thu 8:35p	7
2	vs Dolphins	—	Sun 4:25p	10 (+3)
3	vs Cardinals	—	Sun 4:05p	7
4	vs Broncos	Winning	Sun 4:25p	7
5	at Seahawks	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	7
6	vs Commanders	—	Mon 8:15p	8
7	at Falcons	—	Sun 1:00p	6 (-1)
8	Bye week
9	vs Raiders	—	Sun 4:05p	14 (+7)
10	at Cowboys	Winning	Sun 4:25p	7
11	vs Vikingsneutral site	—	Sun 8:20p	7
12	vs Seahawks	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	7 (-7)
13	at Giants	—	Sun 1:00p	7
14	vs Rams	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	7 (-3)
15	at Chargers	Winning	Thu 8:15p	4
16	at Chiefs	10+ win	Sun 4:25p	10 (+4)
17	vs Eagles	10+ win	Sun 8:20p	7 (-3)
18	at Cardinals	—	Sun 1:00p	7

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 49ers have 5 primetime games, 2 of them on the road. The 49ers are on bye in week 8.

Toughest stretch

Weeks 14-16: Rams, at Chargers, at Chiefs. Three straight projected winning teams, two of them projected for 10 wins or more.

Softest stretch

Weeks 2-4: Dolphins, Cardinals, Broncos. Even here one of the three is a projected winning team — the 49ers never get a genuinely soft run.

Primetime: 2026 night games

The 49ers play 5 games at or after 8:00pm Eastern, 3 at home and 2 on the road — weeks 1, 6, 11, 15, 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 49ers sit

Across the 2026 season the 49ers break exactly even on rest against their opponents. 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.

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.

49ers schedule questions

Do the 49ers have a hard schedule in 2026?

By market win totals, no. The 49ers are tied for the 25th-hardest schedule in the league — their 17 opponents average 8.27 projected wins, against a league average of 8.50 — and 9 of those opponents are projected winning teams.

When is the 49ers bye week in 2026?

The 49ers are on bye in week 8 of the 2026 regular season.

What is the toughest stretch of the 49ers 2026 schedule?

Weeks 14 through 16, when the 49ers play Rams, at Chargers, at Chiefs — all three projected winning teams.

How many primetime games do the 49ers have in 2026?

Five as scheduled — three at home and two 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 49ers rank

San Francisco 49ers are tied for the 25th-hardest schedule of the 32. The Cardinals have the hardest at 9.32, the Lions the easiest at 7.79. All 32 schedules ranked.

San Francisco 49ers podcast and season preview · 49ers running back depth chart · All 2026 bye weeks

Follow the football you care about. Players, teams, stat boards — press Follow on any of them, and that is what your weekly email is made of. Nothing you didn't ask for.

Free. One email a week, in season.

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.

Add to Claude · Set up in ChatGPT · How it works →