The National Football League is obsessed with dominating the sports world’s news cycle. With free agency and the draft in the rearview, the league tries to take over the headlines by using the month of May to slowly leak the upcoming season’s schedule before officially announcing it on a ceremonial day.
That day this year was Thursday, and after knowing the San Francisco 49ers are opening the season in Melbourne, Australia, against the Los Angeles Rams, we now know the remaining 16 games.
Here’s a
quick review of the 49ers’ 2026 regular-season schedule:
Too much unnecessary international flair
I miss the days when the international slate was just the Jacksonville Jaguars playing a throwaway game in London, but this year the league jumped the shark.
There will be a record nine international games, spanning from Mexico City to Melbourne, Australia, with the 49ers included in both cities. Instead of taking the 90-minute flight to Los Angeles for what proves to be an extra home game at SoFi Stadium, the 49ers and Rams instead have to travel to the other side of the world for what usually proves to be an important divisional matchup.
Traditionally, international games would feature two non-conference teams, but last year the trend was bucked when the Chiefs took on the Chargers in Brazil. Now, the 49ers fall victim to Roger Goodell and the NFL’s obsession with expanding the game globally.
But Australia wasn’t enough, as the 49ers will lose a home game this season to play the Minnesota Vikings in Mexico City in Week 11. The November game will mark the third time in history that the 49ers have played south of the border, losing to the Arizona Cardinals in 2005 and but making up for it in 2022 with a 38-10 blowout of Arizona, but this is the first game in which the 49ers will play as the home team.
It would be preferable that the NFL not make a single team travel twice out of the United States, but I guess the league will follow the money when it can, and the 49ers are among the most profitable teams in the league.
The group of death
The first thing I look for with every schedule release is where the toughest stretch of the season will come, and for the 49ers, it comes near the end in 2026.
It could be argued that from Week 10 through Week 17 is that stretch, but let’s take a microscope to the back four games that run:
- Week 14: versus the Rams
- Week 15: at the Chargers (Thursday Night Football)
- Week 16: at the Chiefs
- Week 17 versus the Eagles (Sunday Night Football)
That stretch might feel a little different had it come at the start of the season, but instead, it comes during crunch time, and each of those games will likely have large ramifications on where the 49ers land in the NFC playoffs.
Each of the four teams, except the Chiefs, made the playoffs last season, but Kansas City has some ownership over the 49ers that we don’t need to dive into at this point. To make matters worse, the game is slated for December 27th, and it doesn’t get much colder than Missouri in December, with the multi-time Super Bowl rematch being the best chance for a bad-weather game that the 49ers have historically struggled in.
If the 49ers have hopes for the No. 1 and a potential NFC West crown, they’ll need to bank as many wins as they can before this four-game stretch to give themselves room for error.
A slight break after that stretch
But boy, did the NFL do the 49ers a solid with their Week 18 game.
If San Francisco finds themselves in a spot where the season finale is a meaningful game, there is literally no better option than to face the Arizona Cardinals.
The 49ers have made a recent habit of making the season finale meaningful, whether it was the famous 2019 win over the Seahawks, the 2021 overtime win against the Rams, or the forgettable Week 18 loss to Seattle last season. But now, if the final game of the season is important this year, instead of facing one of the two best teams not just in the division but in the league, the 49ers will get the lesser Cardinals, while the Seahawks and Rams will have to duke it out.
And that difference is important. Since 2022, the 49ers are 6-2 against the Cardinals but 10-6 against Los Angeles and Seattle. Entering 2026, there is a very obvious weak link in the NFC West, and the 49ers will get their chance against that weak link to close the season.
Predictions
My favorite part of the schedule release is that, instead of breaking down the games by looking at the X’s and O’s, we can just look at a list of team names and mark them as wins or losses, because it’s May and everything is hypothetical. So let’s throw a wild prediction out there to see how the 49ers can fare in 2026.
I start by looking at the games that I see as more than likely wins. There are five: both Arizona games, Week 2 against Miami, Week 7 at Atlanta, and Week 9 against the Raiders. With the Rams and Seahawks where they are, let’s call that a split, so 7-2 in those nine games.
The other games I feel confident about winning, though less so than the five above, are Week 6 against Washington and Week 13 at the Giants, which would move us to 9-2.
From there, the final six games get a little fuzzy. Let’s split those games: Week 4 against Denver and Week 10 at Dallas. Week 17 against Philadelphia wins, while marking Week 11 against Minnesota (Brian Flores defenses are scary), Week 15 against the Chargers (short week after the Rams and a Jim Harbarbaugh revenge game), and Week 16 against the Chiefs (I will believe the 49ers can beat them when I see it) as losses.
That would put the 49ers at 12-5. Not too shabby. Write it down with a Sharpie.
