With the 2026 NFL Schedules officially out, teams are surely 100 percent satisfied with the 17-game slate they got, right? Yeah, unfortunately, that is not the case. The NFL has taken a huge stride forward in recent years in loading up games throughout the week.
So now, it feels like there is an NFL game every single day of the week at this point. With games now on Christmas and Black Friday, the league is growing and clearly wanting to be one of the 'main' pieces of our societal fabric.
While this could be cool for some, you'd have to imagine that some teams just aren't huge fans of how many odd dates and times the NFL has scheduled them for in the 2026 season. With the schedules officially out this year, we took a look at three teams that the league royally screwed. Let's dive into it here, starting with an AFC juggernaut.
The NFL did no favors for these three teams with the 2026 NFL Schedule
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos open up the 2026 NFL Season with the following slate:
@ Kansas City
vs. Jacksonville
vs. Los Angeles (N)
@ San Francisco
@ Los Angeles (A)
vs. Seattle
You truly cannot find a tougher chunk of games. All but Kansas City made the playoffs last year, but the Chiefs aren't some dysfunctional mess. The Broncos did win 14 games last year, which was more than any team on the above list outside of Seattle.
Yes, Denver could be better than every team across their first six games, but that doesn't mean those teams aren't quite good. Denver getting out of this slate at least 3-3 would honestly be an ideal scenario.
Winning more than three of these games could really give Denver a major advantage when their schedule gets easier, but this chunk is downright daunting.
Dallas Cowboys
For The Landry Hat, Site Expert Jerry Trotta echoes this point that the Dallas Cowboys got screwed:
"In Week 3, they'll travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to face the Baltimore Ravens. That's followed by a 12 p.m. CT kickoff on the "road" against the Houston Texans, followed by a Thursday night clash versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That adds up to three games in an 11-game span.
No team wants an early bye, but if there was ever a time for an October reprieve, it's after that TNF game. Instead, Dallas will hit the road for back-to-back road games against the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles in Weeks 6 and 7, respectively.
That's A LOT of travel for any team, and yet the NFL decided to postpone the Cowboys' bye week until Week 14 (!). Patently absurd."
Over the Cowboys first seven games, four are on the road, and five are in a primetime slot (including the Brazil game against the Baltimore Ravens). Not only is this a brutal travel schedule, but the NFL stuffing Dallas's early-season slate with all of these primetime matchups just can't be what the team wants.
As Trotta notes further down, the Cowboys also do not have their bye until Week 14. The two games following the bye are against the Los Angeles Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars, so the NFL even decided to give the team two brutal matchups right after their break.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs have a Week 5 bye, so the team plays just four games, gets the break, and then plays 13 games in a row to end the regular season. Furthermore, from September 27th against the Miami Dolphins to December 13th against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Chiefs are at home just three times.
In fact, the team is playing four of five games away from home from November 15th to December 13th. Near the end of the season, the Chiefs also have a stretch of games against the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams, Cincinnati Bengals, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Chargers.
These scheduling quirks are flat-out brutal for Kansas City in a year coming off a shocking non-playoff season.