Bears Final Schedule Release Thoughts: 3 important factors flying under the radar — and 1 getting too much attention
The Chicago Bears seemingly have a daunting road ahead after seeing the 2026 schedule release, but things aren’t actually as bad as they look for a team looking to repeat as NFC North champs.
The Chicago Bears’ entire 2026 regular season schedule was released last week and we now know the times and days for essentially every game on the schedule (outside of the late season games listed as TBD).
The road ahead is going to be challenging, something head coach Ben Johnson has been adamant about since the 2025 season ended. After winning the NFC North, the Bears have become the hunted in the division and plenty of folks are already mentioning the Bears as a regression team to watch this upcoming season.
As hard as the schedule looks on paper, the Bears did score some added benefits that will make the 18-week season more manageable for a team looking to repeat as division champs.
Added benefits for the Chicago Bears on the 2026 schedule
Rest Days
NFL Network’s Eric Edholm listed Bears head coach Ben Johnson as one of the losers following the league-wide schedule release last Thursday, citing the various game time differences and games played on different days. While that’ll be a challenge from a time management and routine perspective, the Bears do benefit when it comes to rest days.
Even though the Bears have six short weeks this upcoming season, the net rest differential turned out to be the best in the league. It’s still going to make practice planning a tough process for Johnson and the players, but the rest comes at a great time as well. Look at Weeks 8-9 for example when the Bears play the two Super Bowl teams from last season. Chicago hosts New England on 10/22 on TNF and the next game at Seattle won’t be until 11 days later on 11/2 on MNF.
That’s plenty of time to prepare for the defending champs, and also leads us to our next benefit from the schedule release.
Lack of travel
The Week 9 date in Seattle is the furthest game the Bears will have to travel for this upcoming season and the only West Coast game Chicago will play, while having the bye week start seven days later. The Miami trip in Week 14 will be a decently long trip, but the Bears lucked out not having to play at Miami in September in the blistering heat.
When it comes to total milage, the Bears will only be travelling 10,676 miles this upcoming season, the third-fewest in the entire league. Not having a game in Spain certainly helped with that.
Primetime Games / Lack of noon kickoffs
This one benefits both the fans and the players. Everyone enjoys playing night games and fans loving having standalone games to watch their team without dealing with broadcast maps. Chicago pulled seven standalone games (counting primetime and holidays) in 2026.
Currently, nine of the team’s 17 games will kickoff at noon CT with the Week 18 game against the Minnesota Vikings still listed as TBD. If that game has major playoff implications, it could easily be a 3:00 p.m. CT kickoff. Everyone loves playing under the bright lights and the Bears certainly earned the spotlight after last season.
Perceived negative that is way too overblown
Strength of schedule
I wrote more about this last week, but I’m not concerned about the Bears playing the toughest strength of schedule in the league based on 2025 win totals. We expected this after the Bears pulled a first-place schedule and all four NFC North teams finished with a winning record.
Great teams don’t shy away from competition. Chicago faced the second toughest strength of schedule last season based on 2025 win totals (.571) and finished the season with 11 wins. It’s entirely an overblown narrative. Teams don’t regress because they play “tougher” opponents. It’s the NFL, every game is a tough game. Teams regress from season to season because of injuries, coaching changes, etc.
I’m not concerned in the slightest about the strength of schedule for this team based on what they showed last year against top teams.