2026 NFL schedule release: Judging overreactions to matchups - ESPN

Ah, the NFL schedule release. A time of hope, excitement, social media fun and, yes, overreactions.

Each year around this time, the league releases its full schedule for the upcoming season, so teams and their fans begin to examine it game-by-game. They look at where they got bad breaks and where they got advantages. Why does my favorite team have a bye week so early? What's with these back-to-back-to-back road games? Looking at that first-half schedule, what's stopping us from starting 9-0?

It's one of the easiest times of the offseason to trot out an overreactions column, as the football-loving world tries to predict games four, five, six and seven months away without knowing who's going to be good, who's going to get hurt or, in some cases, who's going to be on all of these teams.

So no, we aren't above it. Let's judge five possible overreactions to the 2026 schedule.

Jump to a potential overreaction for:
Bears | Bengals | Chiefs | Dolphins
Super Bowl teams

Chicago was one of the great stories of the 2025 season, reaching the NFC divisional round in Ben Johnson's first year as head coach. Second-year quarterback Caleb Williams made brilliant fourth-quarter play after brilliant fourth-quarter play right up until the end, taking the Rams to overtime before finally bowing out.

In the long term, the arrow is definitely pointing up for the Johnson/Williams pairing — and there's room for Williams to get even better. He finished 32nd out of 33 qualifying QBs in completion percentage (58.1%) last season and just 16th in QBR (58.2) even as he led the Bears to their first division title in seven years.

But… the Bears have the hardest schedule in the NFL, based on the 2025 win/loss records of the teams they'll play in 2026. And