Before the Kansas City Chiefs’ 2026 schedule is officially revealed on Thursday evening, the known opponents already give us a good sense of how difficult the regular season will be.
Considering the team placed third in the division instead of winning the AFC West for the first time since 2015, the schedule should lighten up for Kansas City…
The team’s 2026 opponents are as follows:
Home: Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, Las Vegas Raiders, Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Cardinals, New England Patriots,
New York Jets, San Francisco 49ers
Away: Broncos, Chargers, Raiders, Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks
Based on the opponents’ winning percentage from the 2025 season, the Chiefs have the fifth-highest strength of schedule for 2026. The only AFC team above them is the Miami Dolphins, who are projected to have one of the league’s lowest winning totals.
The team does have nine games against teams that made the postseason a year ago, a number boosted when including four matchups with division rivals, the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers.
However, from another perspective, the Chiefs’ strength of schedule ranks slightly lower and closer to the league average. Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis bases his rankings of the NFL’s strength of schedule on the forecasted win totals in Vegas.
Based on his rankings, the Chiefs have the 10th-easiest schedule, but that could change depending on the timing of certain opponents and how the schedule sets up Kansas City in terms of rest advantage and bye-week favorability.
So we actually don’t know how strong a schedule the Chiefs have compared to the rest of the league, because there are multiple ways to define a strong schedule, and the team does have a “third-place” schedule ahead of them instead of facing the rest of the conference’s division champions.
Do you agree with the numbers that indicate the Chiefs have one of the easiest schedules in the NFL for the 2026 regular season? Or should we trust last year’s results more? Let us know in the comments.
