In a perfect world, every NFL team would play the same caliber of schedule and thus face a level playing field on the road to the postseason. The scheduling model does not work that way. Take last year’s New England Patriots, for instance. They held the worst strength of schedule in the league, according to FPI. It is no coincidence they made a Super Bowl run.
That is an extreme example, but a little scheduling luck can help push a talented roster over the hump and maximize its potential. Then there is the flip side. Sometimes the strongest teams face the toughest paths to the playoffs and, in turn, fail to live up to lofty expectations.
Who could be the next Patriots? Here are the five playoff contenders with the most favorable roads to the postseason.
Detroit Lions
Lions opponents posted the sixth-worst winning percentage in 2025. While basing this year’s strength of schedule on last year’s results provides only a mostly accurate picture because it does not account for the improvement or regression that comes with offseason moves, it still speaks to the enviable position the Lions find themselves in.
That alone is enough to make Detroit a candidate to bounce back and return to the playoffs, not to mention the offense has a chance to be among the league’s most explosive.
The NFC North will be tough, but a majority of Detroit’s non-division games come against bottom-dwellers. In total, it will play 10 contests against teams in the bottom half of Pete Prisco’s post-NFL Draft power rankings.
Lions opponents ranked in NFL’s bottom half
In addition to the sheer volume of subpar teams on the docket, the Lions also benefit from a couple of stretches against them in consecutive weeks. As shown in the table above, Detroit gets two separate three-week runs against teams the public expects to finish with losing records. Those come in Weeks 3-5 and Weeks 13-15, giving Dan Campbell opportunities to build momentum when it matters most: the beginning and end of the season.
New Orleans Saints
A fantastic back half of 2025 made the Saints a popular 2026 breakout pick. Tyler Shough won four of his final five starts as a rookie and could command an even better offense in Year 2 with Travis Etienne bolstering the backfield. With a comfortable schedule and a wide-open division also working in his favor, Shough might find himself quarterbacking in the playoffs.
While the Saints boast the NFL’s second-easiest schedule, again based on last year’s win totals, each of the three other NFC South teams faces an average slate strength of No. 20. Not only is New Orleans in a division where no team posted a winning record last year, but it also stands to benefit from those other squads facing more daunting roads. Those two factors working together set the stage for a climb to the top of the standings.
Granted, the picture might not look so pretty early in the year. Two of the Saints’ toughest games come in the first two weeks when they battle the Lions and Ravens in a pair of tricky road matchups.
Once that stretch closes, though, the home-versus-road trends shift dramatically in the other direction. New Orleans has only one true away game from Week 3 through Week 10, with a road date against the Giants and an international neutral-site contest against the Steelers marking the only trips away from the Big Easy. A bye week after that two-game set should mitigate any lingering travel effects.
Cincinnati Bengals
With the third-cushiest schedule by opponents’ 2025 win totals, a seemingly improved defense and the offensive star power of Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Chase Brown, the Bengals should expect this to be the year they get back into the Super Bowl hunt.
Keeping Burrow healthy and keeping opposing teams off the scoreboard remain of the utmost importance, and the items on their calendar should help in both regards.
As for the defense — which added Dexter Lawrence, Boye Mafe and Jonathan Allen up front and Bryan Cook at safety — the collection of offenses it will face gives it a chance to shine. Only one opponent (the Colts) finished last year in the top 10 of PFF’s offensive rankings, and the average ranking of all 17 opponents was 20.5. Cincinnati’s influx of talent, paired with a mediocre crop of opposing offenses, should help this unit improve from last year’s second-worst finish in yards allowed.
It also helps to play in a division that is up for grabs. The Ravens underwent a coaching change after inexplicably finishing last year under .500, the Browns are at the bottom of the ladder until proven otherwise and the Steelers’ ceiling is only as high as that of a 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers.
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John Breech
Philadelphia Eagles
Having become the first repeat NFC East champion in 21 years, the Eagles are the class of the division. Being the clear best team in an otherwise uninspiring division over the last two seasons gives the Eagles a simple formula for 2026: Maintain the status quo, and they are probably headed back to the playoffs. The schedule will help them do that even if A.J. Brown departs this summer via trade.
For a team that plays the entire NFC West — which again shapes up as the best division in football — the agenda actually lines up quite nicely. The Eagles get two of those squads at home in the Rams and Seahawks, and another game against a reigning postseason team, the Texans, will also take place at Lincoln Financial Field. Teams hoping to maximize wins want their toughest games at home and easier draws on the road, and that is precisely what Philadelphia received.
Taking that a step further, there is a distinct disparity in the Eagles’ favor between home stands and road swings. They will never play more than two consecutive games away from home, while they also have stretches of three and four weeks without true road games.
Here is the first one:
And the second:
- Week 14 vs. Colts
- Week 15 vs. Seahawks
- Week 16 vs. Texans
Baltimore Ravens
Despite checking in at a modest No. 14 themselves, all but one of the Ravens’ first seven opponents — the Cowboys — sit below them in Prisco’s power rankings. First-year coach Jesse Minter could not ask for a much smoother on-ramp into his new job.
Additionally, none of those seven games — at Colts, vs. Saints, at Cowboys, vs. Titans, at Falcons, at Browns and vs. Bengals — come against teams that made the playoffs last year. A few project to be better in 2026, but none are bona fide Super Bowl contenders.
Furthermore, even though they reside on one coast, the Ravens will not have to travel much this year. They rank a modest 21st in miles traveled, and the Brazil game does the heavy lifting there. Even more telling is the fact they will play just two games outside the Eastern Time Zone all year, and neither comes with more than a one-hour time difference.
