NFL schedule release winners, losers: Seahawks, Joe Burrow set up, not high-profile rookies

After days – maybe weeks? – of anticipation, the 2026 NFL regular-season schedule finally emerged fully formed Thursday, May 14, the remaining gaps filled in after the league revealed so many of its showcase matchups throughout the early part of the week while other leaks sprang elsewhere.

And now teams and fans alike know – where are those prime-time battle royales? Is the bye week too early? When is our division rival coming to town?

It’s a lot to sift through – and we’ll do so live over the course of the evening – but let’s anoint the winners and brand the losers of this year’s schedule release:

WINNERS

Holiday season

Patrick Mahomes' Chiefs vs. Josh Allen's Bills on Thanksgiving night? Gonna have to do a better job managing that tryptophan coma. And how about Christmas? The league's longest-running rivalry (Bears-Packers) preceding what's currently its best one (Rams-Seahawks) with a playoff rematch of the Bills and Broncos − the one that ultimately got former Buffalo coach Sean McDermott fired − in between. Just wow. And just in case you've got nothing going on for New Year's Eve? The Bengals-Ravens game that night could be quite consequential.

Seattle Seahawks

The reigning Super Bowl champions host the regular-season kickoff Sept. 9 – a Wednesday due to Labor Day’s Sept. 7 placement on the calendar – against the New England Patriots, the team they whacked in Super Bowl 60 in February. But the early game, along with a Thursday night date at Denver in Week 6, plus a Week 11 bye means the ‘Hawks will enjoy quite a few organic breaks throughout the fall – a nice little advantage for a team seeking to qualify for back-to-back Super Sundays for the second time in franchise history. And the fact that the Seahawks are traveling substantially fewer miles than the division rival Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, who meet in Australia to start the season, doesn’t hurt, either.

ESPN

The 2026 season will be a landmark one for the Worldwide Leader, which will broadcast a record 29 games this season − including Super Bowl 61, the first time ESPN will broadcast television's biggest event of the year. The network's haul also includes seven contests that will be shown on NFL Network, which was recently acquired by ESPN.

Dallas Cowboys fans

Their beloved, overexposed, typically overrated (?), "America's Team" will be featured in six prime-time games − including "Sunday Night Football" on opening weekend against the New York Giants and three night games in succession from Weeks 5-7. Then there's the trip to Rio in Week 3 to face the Ravens plus a Thanksgiving date with the Eagles. Enjoy ... for as long as you can.

Joe Burrow

The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback has bemoaned his team's lack of prime-time games in the Queen City while they're frequently showcased in ... Baltimore, at night for four seasons running, among other towns. But this season, the Bengals will host the Pittsburgh Steelers on "Sunday Night Football" in Week 10 and the Ravens on New Year's Eve, which is a Thursday night. (Urbane Joey B. also gets a free trip to Madrid to face the Falcons on Nov. 8.) Happy New Year early, Stripes.

NFL's international footprint

The league's quest for world domination continues – to the point that international matchups are an increasingly commonplace aspect of the schedule. This year, the NFL will stage games in four continents, seven countries and eight stadiums outside of America – with regular-season debuts occurring in Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Paris.

It doesn’t seem like we’re very far from all 32 teams playing internationally once per season – which would mean one game abroad almost weekly as the league tries to further slake the foreign appetite for its most valuable inventory while also (likely) staving off any urge to expand outside the U.S. … and the logistical nightmare that would entail. For now.

Arizona Cardinals?

Some NFL players and coaches love the glare of the prime-time spotlight. Others love nothing more than suiting up every Sunday afternoon. Hopefully Cards rookie coach Mike LaFleur falls into the latter category, his rebuilding – and seemingly unimposing squad – is the only one in the NFC that will enter the season without being slotted into a single prime-time slot. Hopefully for the Cardinals, being parked on Sunday afternoons every week will mean steady circadian rhythms as they rebuild their operation in the shadow of their far more imposing big brothers in the NFC West.

Winner? Loser?

The Los Angeles Chargers' vaunted social media team − renowned for its highly anticipated social media presentations of the team's schedule − really went there, not so subtly acknowledging the offseason drama embroiling New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and The Athletic's former league insider, Dianna Russini ... in a "Halo"-themed backdrop of all things. Sure, they, ahem, made their bed. But what goes around, comes around − and quite possibly so for the Bolts and their coach, Jim Harbaugh, who's barred from coaching college football until 2038 due to his unethical conduct at the University of Michigan. Patriots at Chargers, y'all − naturally, the capstone of Thanksgiving week on "Sunday Night Football" on Nov. 29 in L.A. ... and, don't forget, Vrabel's Pats embarrassed the Bolts 16-3 in last season's playoffs, the final score not indicative of how uncompetitive the game actually was.

LOSERS

Jeremiyah Love

Arguably the best player emerging from an unremarkable 2026 NFL Draft – and already the best-paid running back in NFL history in terms of the $53 million in guarantees, a record at his position, emanating from his rookie contract – you’ll apparently be forced to move to Arizona if you want to see anything aside from Love-ly highlights this season given the Cards’ absence from exclusive broadcast windows.

Fernando Mendoza

Want to see the No. 1 pick of this year’s draft in action? Might need to move to Las Vegas … whenever Kirk Cousins is relegated to the bench. But like Love’s Cardinals, Mendoza’s Las Vegas Raiders were not awarded a single prime-time slot this season – one of four AFC squads so relegated along with the New York Jets, Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans.

Cam Ward

Speaking of the Titans, for the second year in a row, the No. 1 pick of the 2025 draft won't be featured in prime time, either. Let's go, Cam Ward, will your beautifully clad team into a late-season flex window!

Dallas Cowboys haters

So sorry.

Aaron Rodgers?

Assuming he returns to the Steelers, the second half of what could be his final season includes a game at Cincinnati, two against the Ravens and five against 2025 playoff squads following Pittsburgh's Week 9 bye. That's quite a gauntlet bracketing the four-time MVP's 43rd birthday in December.

Adam Schefter

How much time did it take you – or your army of assistants – to schedule all of those retweets of each team’s social media unveiling of its schedule? Good job, Schefty? Sorry? Stop bombarding our phones?

NFL Network

For the first time since the broadcasting arm formerly operated under the league’s umbrella was officially acquired and subsequently absorbed by ESPN on April 1, the network leveraged NFLN’s air to simulcast its two-hour "SportsCenter" schedule release show – which was also shown on the ESPN mothership. In the past, NFL Network’s “NFL GameDay Morning” crew – including anchor Rich Eisen, Hall of Famer Kurt Warner and others – had done a three-hour broadcast to celebrate the schedule reveal. While Thursday night’s approach makes sense from a streamlining perspective in terms of production costs on shows that would basically share highly duplicative information, it’s probably an even savvier move this year given NFL Network is currently dark on Comcast following the expiration of its contract with the cable giant on May 1.

Families of football fans

As a media member who covers the league for a living, I'm not complaining − certainly not. Yet I feel for those legions of fans who will be so clearly torn between their folks, kids and friends ... and the gravitational pull of another football game at the opportunity cost of fireside family time. I mean, a Thanksgiving tripleheader, joined by a Christmas tripleheader, plus Black Friday ... and, now, Thanksgiving Eve? Saturday games each of the final four weeks of the regular season? We love you all. We'll see you in late February − never mind, scouting combine.

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