2026 NFL Schedule Release Instant Takeaways: Best Release Videos, Early DST Candidates and More
Ian Hartitz breaks down the best and worst schedule release videos, best ball playoff angles and more from the 2026 NFL schedule release.
The 2026 NFL schedule has been released. Let's party, people!
What follows are six takeaways that cover actionable early-season fantasy strategy, best ball playoff intel, which NFL social account video rankings and much more!
As always: It's a great day to be great.
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Top Six Takeaways From The 2026 NFL Schedule Release
Best NFL Schedule Release Videos
My top five:
- Shoutout to the Colts for winning the day with their Simpsons-themed release. Extra points for the "We will not include Tyreek Hill in these videos" reference in the beginning. People don't forget!
- The Chargers, per usual, crushed—this time with a Halo-themed release video. Yes, they referenced the thing.
- The Titans continue to crush these—this time matching up their schedule with random lookalikes on the street. They seriously found a Myles Garrett twin.
- The Bears leaned on Bob Ross–err, Rome Odunze to paint their schedule. Officially drafting Odunze every chance I get this offseason.
- The Raiders squared up Fernando Mendoza and Kirk Cousins in a Step Brothers face-off. That's just good, clean, family fun right there.
The worst video goes to the Carindals. AI slop from arguably the worst franchise in the league. Be better!
Time To Start Memorizing The Best Ball Playoffs!
Shoutout to Michael for the cheat sheet. Four potentially good offenses stand out as candidates to have a potentially tough time from a bad weather perspective …
- Ravens: In Pittsburgh Week 15, home vs. Cleveland in Week 16 and in Cincinnati in Week 17. Good ole midwest winter football, baby!
- Bears: In Buffalo Week 15 before coming home and facing the Packers and Lions. That could be a LOT of snow.
- Packers: Home vs. the Dolphins in Week 15, on the road in Chicago for Week 16, and back home vs. the Texans in Week 17. That could also be a LOT of snow.
- Texans: Will be on the road in Philly and Green Bay in Weeks 16 and 17. Not great, C.J.
Additionally, the Lions (at Chicago), Colts (at Cleveland) and Patriots (home vs. Broncos) got some rough draws for fantasy championship weekend in Week 17.
Some Early Candidates For The Best DST Options To Start The Season
It's tough to feel at all good about making meaningful positional strength-of-schedule arguments in May. That said, identifying prolonged stretches of subpar opposing QB play is a good way to find a quality late-round DST to hang your hat on.
My two favorite early contenders …
- Ravens: It'd make sense if the defense builds off their strong second half, thanks to new head coach Jesse Minter. This group starts off the season with the Colts (Daniel Jones' first game since tearing his Achilles), before facing the Saints (fine), Cowboys (that's the one rough spot), Titans (okay), Falcons (OKAY) and Browns (OKAY!). A good real-life football team with a potentially really good real-life defense with five quality matchups in the first six weeks. Not too shabby!
- Chargers: Minter's old squad looks a lot like a great option for the first two weeks of the season: They get the Cardinals and Raiders—both at home! Things are rough after that (BUF, SEA, DEN, KC, BYE), but hey, we'll worry about Week 3 streaming DST options another time.
Additional teams with at least a few solid matchups to start the season include: Bears (CAR, MIN, PHI, NYJ), Lions (NO, BUF, NYJ, CAR), Packers (MIN, NYJ, ATL), Chiefs (DEN, IND, MIA, LV) and 49ers (LAR, MIA, ARI). Happy streaming!
The NFL Week 1 Schedule Is Absolutely Loaded
My top-five favorite storylines from this objectively awesome slate of football:
- Wednesday night rematch between the Seahawks and Patriots. "Why is there football on Wednesday night?" I … don't know, but hey: It's better than no football on a Wednesday, ya know?
- The Rams and 49ers will travel to the land down under to kick off the first Thursday night game of the year. Expect a ton of upside-down memes in the lead-up.
- Jaguars-Browns AKA the Travis Hunter bowl. Additional fireworks for Hunter to potentially do something cool on offense, leading to instant victory laps from fantasy nerds and virgins who continue to cling to their pre-2025 pro-Hunter agenda.
- Cowboys-Giants on Sunday night … for only the second time since 2018!? I know, that can't be right. But it is. I even double-checked. Madness.
- Panthers-Bears in the early afternoon Sunday slate. I guess there's an angle here with the whole impact of the Bryce Young trade (Da Bears won, in case you missed it), but my personal allure is the fact that two of my college friends—one a massive Bears fan, the other a Panthers—have made a bet that the loser can't talk about their team for the rest of the season in the group chat. Those are some serious stakes!
The NFL On Christmas Is Going To Be Lit This Year (Pun Intended)
Remember when Christmas Day seemed like more of an NBA holiday? Me neither, but apparently that used to be a thing. Not anymore! First, fans get a fine-enough Christmas Eve matchup between the Eagles and Texans, but the real treat is a Christmas Day triple-header that features three playoff rematches:
- Bears vs. Packers
- Broncos vs. Bills
- Seahawks vs. Rams
Absolute cinema. You know, as long as your favorite team and/or fantasy squad doesn't ruin the day and cause you to drunkenly ruin Christmas for your family.
Miscellaneous Notes From The 2026 NFL Schedule Release
A handful of other things stood out:
- The Cardinals have a ROUGH schedule. Week 4 against the Giants seems somewhat reasonable, but otherwise? You have to make it all the way to Week 15 (Jets) to find another game where they won't be a decent underdog. We could be hearing from Carson "I'm not a loser, baby" Beck sooner rather than later if those L's start to stack up.
- Another year with *zero* primetime games for Cam Ward and the Titans. It should be required that we get Jaguars-Titans wearing the color rush uniforms on at least one Thursday night per year. Sad! The Jets, Raiders, Cardinals and Dolphins also currently don't have any primetime games for 2026.
- Speaking of primetime: Get used to watching the Rams early and often. They go Thursday night (49ers), Monday night (Giants), Sunday night (Broncos) and Monday night again (Bills) during the first five weeks of the season. Other teams with five-plus primetime games include the Packers, Chiefs, Bills, Seahawks, Cowboys, Eagles, Bears, Patriots and 49ers.
- The 49ers will easily be traveling the most miles this season. The Panthers will travel the least. Does this still really matter in the year 2026? Good question.
- Nobody has a tougher schedule than the Bears when it comes to 2025 opponent winning percentage. The Dolphins, Cardinals, Packers and Chiefs round out the five toughest schedules, while the Browns, Saints, Bengals, Colts and Falcons seem to have gotten a bit of a break.
- Trevor Lawrence cut his flow?! I don't know what's real or not anymore.
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