NFL schedules don’t mean much, unless you’re a team like the New York Jets desperate to simply be good enough to sniff the last playoff spots. Bad news guys.
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The NFL schedule release has become an event… for some reason. It’s just another NFL news item, and fans can’t get enough of NFL news, which is why its an event. Cue the confetti! The 2026 season schedule is officially out now, with the order and timing of all opponents. The opponents themselves were already known, making this phenomena even weirder… how about them New York Jets?
In recent years, teams have begun to make fun/quirky/awkward/cringe videos to announce the schedule. This year, the New York Jets took an understated approach to the craft. They had paint being mixed to become the color of the opponent, and that’s about it. We’re fine with it. As commenters pointed out, if the Jets had gone over the top, people would have dunked on them for being terrible at football but good at videography, or something of that nature.
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The whole thing is kind of beyond us anyway. We don’t care about the event of it all. What’s important is what comes next. After the dust settles, we do get the official schedules; so there’s that! So how about them New York Jets?
New York Jets Get Bad News This Season
There are Simply No Easy Games for the Jets
Todd Salem: For the Jets, things start tricky. Three of the first four games are on the road: at Tennessee against Robert Saleh, at Detroit, and at Chicago. Mixed in is a home game versus Green Bay. It is a very tough first month for the very new roster.
Things let up considerably the next month, though taking hard lumps right out of the gate for a new roster attempting to gel may lead to scuffling even against weaker competition. The next month sees New York play Cleveland, Miami, and Las Vegas, all at home, with a road trip to New England mixed in. It’s almost the mirror image to the first month.
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The second half of the season is pretty darn hard all the way through. It was to be expected with the AFC East having to face the NFC North and AFC West this year. There was no way an easy schedule was going to come out of this. But even having said that, the Jets feel like they got a bad draw. I would not want to start out the year very difficult and then have hard games sprinkled throughout the entire second half. The “easy” portion is almost wasted in this iteration.
Specifically in the second half, the Jets will face all of Kansas City, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Denver, New England, Minnesota, and Buffalo again. There are only two games in the entire second half where the Jets will be projected to have a good chance of winning, and they are both on the road: at Miami and at Arizona. It is brutal.
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If NY could pick its own schedule with the same opponents, surely it would have wanted more easy games up front to build confidence for a new roster. I suppose the positive of this is if the team is aiming for the top pick in the 2027 draft, they won’t have to pull any chicanery. The schedule itself should destroy them.
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The Ceiling on This Season Just Dropped Several Feet
Dan Salem: It’s a very good thing that schedule strength is 100% based upon how teams performed LAST season. It’s even better that at least 40% of the league flips each season from good to bad and vice versa. Do the New York Jets have a brutal schedule as it stands today? Absolutely, which feels unfair because bad teams are supposed to play other bad opponents. Will the Jets’ schedule actually seem quite different by the time Halloween rolls around? It’s almost a certainty.
I personally enjoyed the paint video thing and was super excited to see the Jets visiting Los Angeles this season to face the Chargers. Considering that half of the AFC East should be great this year, as it usually is, New York almost never has a schedule that’s remotely easy. Will the AFC West and NFC North remain dominant? We don’t truly know, but assuming they do, the Jets need to get good really fast.
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Everything hangs on the defense because so many of New York’s opponents score a ton of points, which is why they are good teams. The majority of them were playoff teams last year. Eight games to be exact, or nearly half the season, are against 2025 playoff teams and that doesn’t include Kansas City or Detroit. There is a scenario where the Jets are good and they compete with all of their opponents, but what is truly most likely?
I envision New York being significantly better than last season, but that does not make them a playoff threat. It makes them on the cusp, which is a huge improvement and exactly what you want in year two of a new coaching regime. Unfortunately, if the schedule remains as hard as it looks, simply being on the cusp won’t be good enough to win many games.
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Eight or Nine wins feels optimistic considering the Jets’ opponents. If the offensive line is dominant and if Breece Hall has a Pro Bowl season and if Geno Smith plays great and if the defense can reach top 15 levels and if Sadiq is offensive rookie of the year, then perhaps the Jets will have a winning record. But unfortunately, ifs and buts are not candy and nuts.
Meet our Sports Writers:
Dan Salem is Lead Editor and Co-owner of BuzzChomp. He’s an award winning Actor, Director and Producer. Visit M Square Productions for his film work, or get lost in his old-school comedy on Pillow Talk TV. You can follow him on X, TikTok and Instagram. His latest film ‘Alone’ is now on Amazon.
Todd Salem is a Staff Writer and Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a champion of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, dominating leagues for over two decades. Comment below on his unfiltered opinions.
New York Jets Get Bad News – This Is The End
Photo Credits: usatoday.com and via Getty Images
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