The 2026 NFL schedule has been released, meaning nearly all of the pieces are on the board for the upcoming fantasy season.
In our world, all of the money is made in Weeks 15-17, so I’ll mostly be discussing how things look for the fantasy playoffs, based on both opposing offense and defense strength. First, there are a few regular season notes worth mentioning.
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Check out the 2026 Sunday Night Football Schedule!
▶ Bye Week Apocolypse
The NFL has graced us with just one bye-pocolypse, bye-mageddon, or bye-Deep Impact this year: Week 11.
The MVP and runner-up are both on bye in the same week. Four of the top five vote-getters for Offensive Player of the Year are taking the week off together. For IDP sickos, DPOY Myles Garrett and third-place finisher Micah Parsons are both on bye. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to this while drafting, but maybe don’t stack three of these teams together.
▶ 2026 NFL Strength of Schedule
There are plenty of ways to determine strength of schedule. Previous season opponent win percentage is most common, but current Vegas win totals are going to predict 2026 success more than 2025 results. Using that as our measure, the Lions stand out as having the easiest schedule.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the Lions look like they’re going to win a lot of games. I will file this away among the many other reasons to draft Jahmyr Gibbs as the 1.01.
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Arizona, on the other hand, gets a murderer’s row of opponents, particularly over the first three months of the season.
This is a team that is likely sitting between one and three wins heading into their Week 14 bye. I would not expect Jacoby Brissett to be starting games in the fantasy playoffs.
Miami has the second-hardest strength of schedule, though it’s not front-weighted like that of the Cardinals. They get their three easiest games — two dates with the Jets and a Week 1 opener at Vegas — in the first 12 weeks. Miami can’t realistically move on from Malik Willis until the 2028 offseason, so I wouldn’t worry too much about him getting benched. Still, it is a possibility that is slightly more likely after the schedule release.
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▶ Fantasy Playoff Schedules
The chart below shows the 2025 average EPA per play allowed of the three defenses each team faces in the fantasy playoffs. It also has the average EPA per play generated by the opposing three offenses every team will face. Both columns are color-coded. Red means a team allows more points on defense or scores more points on offense, both of which we want when taking players from the opposing team. The matchups listed in italics are played indoors.
|
Team |
Week 15 |
Week 16 |
Week 17 |
Opponent Defense EPA/Play |
Opponent Offense EPA/Play |
|
MIN |
DET |
WAS |
@ NYJ |
0.103 |
-0.008 |
|
JAX |
@ HOU |
@ DAL |
WAS |
0.068 |
0.045 |
|
PIT |
BAL |
CAR |
@ TEN |
0.064 |
-0.045 |
|
LAC |
SF |
@ MIA |
KC |
0.050 |
0.037 |
|
IND |
@ TEN |
CIN |
@ CLE |
0.048 |
-0.104 |
|
LV |
DEN |
TEN |
@ ARI |
0.046 |
-0.042 |
|
CLE |
@ NYG |
@ BAL |
IND |
0.045 |
0.054 |
|
ARI |
NYJ |
@ NO |
LV |
0.042 |
-0.133 |
|
ATL |
@ WAS |
TB |
NO |
0.039 |
-0.012 |
|
NO |
@ TB |
ARI |
@ ATL |
0.038 |
-0.005 |
|
CIN |
@ CAR |
@ IND |
BAL |
0.033 |
0.032 |
|
NYG |
CLE |
@ DET |
@ DAL |
0.030 |
0.001 |
|
NE |
@ KC |
@ NYJ |
DEN |
0.027 |
-0.017 |
|
TEN |
IND |
@ LV |
PIT |
0.023 |
-0.027 |
|
LA |
DAL |
@ SEA |
@ TB |
0.022 |
0.050 |
|
BAL |
@ PIT |
CLE |
@ CIN |
0.021 |
-0.045 |
|
BUF |
CHI |
@ DEN |
@ MIA |
0.021 |
0.030 |
|
CHI |
@ BUF |
GB |
DET |
0.015 |
0.113 |
|
DET |
@ MIN |
NYG |
@ CHI |
0.015 |
0.008 |
|
CAR |
CIN |
@ PIT |
SEA |
0.012 |
0.025 |
|
GB |
MIA |
@ CHI |
HOU |
0.004 |
0.015 |
|
DEN |
@ LV |
BUF |
@ NE |
-0.006 |
0.036 |
|
NYJ |
@ ARI |
NE |
MIN |
-0.012 |
0.015 |
|
MIA |
@ GB |
LAC |
BUF |
-0.014 |
0.084 |
|
KC |
NE |
SF |
@ LAC |
-0.016 |
0.076 |
|
DAL |
@ LA |
JAX |
NYG |
-0.017 |
0.077 |
|
SEA |
@ PHI |
LA |
@ CAR |
-0.020 |
0.053 |
|
HOU |
JAX |
@ PHI |
@ GB |
-0.029 |
0.065 |
|
TB |
NO |
@ ATL |
LA |
-0.037 |
0.022 |
|
SF |
@ LAC |
@ KC |
PHI |
-0.045 |
0.020 |
|
PHI |
SEA |
HOU |
@ SF |
-0.050 |
0.040 |
|
WAS |
ATL |
@ MIN |
@ JAX |
-0.052 |
-0.021 |
▶ Fantasy Football Playoff Targets
No team gets an easier run of defenses than the Vikings and it’s not a close race. They get two of the bottom-three units by EPA per play and the two worst defenses by EPA per dropback allowed. For all of his faults, Kyler Murray wasn’t particularly bad last year in the spreadsheets. Among quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks, Murray ranked 22nd in EPA per play, just behind Caleb Williams and Justin Herbert. Now he gets to throw to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and Jauan Jennings with Kevin O’Connell calling the plays. It’s hard to find a better setup than this.
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The Jags and Steelers make up the next tier of light defensive matchups. Pittsburgh’s home stretch is less interesting after a glance at the opposing offenses. After Baltimore, they face the No. 26 and No. 30 offenses by EPA per play. If anything, these set up as strong spots for their running backs.
Jacksonville gets an ugly road game versus Houston’s vaunted defesne before a pair of potential shootouts with the Cowboys and Commanders. I hate to receive my “Fell for it Again” award this early in the offseason, but boy is the No. 2 overall pick from last year’s NFL Draft mighty cheap. Travis Hunter is currently the WR61 in early Underdog drafts, going off the board at pick 147. He is easily my favorite Jag to draft, especially with an eye toward the fantasy playoffs.
Moving to the other side of the ball, the Bears get two top-five offenses in their playoff run, plus a Packers team that was hyper-efficient, albeit at a snail’s pace. They also have the easiest defensive schedule among the five teams with the best offensive schedules.
The Chiefs get a fun matchup in a dome versus the Chargers to end the season, putting a bow on a fun stretch of potentially barn-burners. They also share a common playoff opponent with the Chargers via the 49ers, meaning fantasy managers can get even more postseason correlation by drafting players from all three teams.
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The last notable component of the schedule reveal is indoor vs. outdoor games. Games in domes (or stadiums with retractable roofs) score roughly three extra points on average. This is largely due to avoiding bad weather situations, which is doubly important late in the year when locations like Cleveland and Chicago become frozen wastelands ready to drift into the Great Lakes at any moment. The Raiders and Cardinals are the only teams with three dome games to end the year. The Cardinals will probably be starting Carson Beck at this point, so I can’t say I’m awfully interested in stacking them. Vegas, on the other hand, should improve over the course of the season with Fernando Mendoza getting more reps in Klint Kubiak’s offense under his belt. I will be buying Brock Bowers until my last draft of the summer.
▶ Fantasy Football Playoff Fades
The teams facing elite defensive units in the playoffs are all strong offenses. That alone isn’t a good enough reason to fade any of them outright. I’ll simply make a few notes on players who may not finish strong. George Kittle currently goes as the TE11 in Underdog drafts and the TE9 in DraftKings best ball. After tearing his Achilles tendon in the Wild Card Round, his availability for the early part of the season is up in the air. He’s largely a bet on late-season points. That is a riskier bet to make when his playoff opponents ranked 32nd, 28th, and 26th in points allowed to tight ends.
Rachaad White is arguably the best bet to lead the Commanders in carries this year. I would not count on him being in lineups during the fantasy playoffs. After Week 15, the Commanders are underdogs on the road to 2025’s 31st and 20th-ranked teams in fantasy points allowed to running backs. White isn’t explosive enough to overcome low-volume games and that’s exactly what he could be facing in the postseason.
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Arizona has the worst postseason run when it comes to facing good offenses from 2025, though the Raiders and Saints should both be vastly improved teams this year. Even under that assumption, they’re likely in for three low-scoring slogs with Beck at the helm as they chase down the No. 1 overall pick.
Things are setting up nicely for Jonathan Taylor to torch the 2026 postseason after being one of the biggest disappointments down the stretch in 2025. Indy is favored in two of its final three matchups, including an ugly road game at Cleveland. On the other hand, that game in particular could be an issue for their passing attack. The Browns faced the third-fewest pass attempts in the NFL last year and the third-lowest EPA per dropback. I was already taking a cautious approach to Alec Pierce’s ADP before the schedule release. A date with a Cleveland defense that will grant him neither efficiency nor volume has me even more bearish.