The Ravens May Have An Easier Schedule in 2026, But Here's What Really Matters

The NFL will milk the release of the schedule this week, in drips and drabs, making a big production out of something that we largely already can conceptualize.

We have known for years which teams the Ravens will play in 2026 and whether those games are in Baltimore or elsewhere. The order in which they occur is a big deal – not as big a deal as the league office would have you believe – and will certainly impact the overall outcome of their season. There are certain ways that coaches and front offices evaluate the final schedule. Most of it is common sense, but it can be illuminating.

Longtime NFL GM Marty Hurney told me this what he immediately looked for when the schedule was released: “When is the bye? When are the divisional games? How many short weeks do we have and how many times are we facing a team on a short week? When are the holiday games and are going to have to immediately make changes to our tentative schedule that week for practice and travel?”

Before we get into the criteria that will be applied to determine how difficult this schedule really is, let’s look at the opponents. The Ravens, besides their division foes, will also travel to Buffalo, Houston, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Carolina, Dallas (in Brazil) – four teams that reached the playoffs (including Pittsburgh). And they host, outside the AFC North, the Jaguars, Titans, Saints, Buccaneers, and Chargers.

That doesn’t look so formidable on paper right now, though I could see the Bucs and Chargers being much improved on offense this season.

So, when the honchos in New York finally believe you are worthy of seeing this schedule Thursday night – you know as the people who actually will be spending your money to watch it – what should we most be on the lookout for?

The Games Bookending The International Game

We know the Ravens are playing Dallas in Brazil in Week 3. What we don’t know is what’s up in Week 2 and Week 4? And we know the earliest bye comes in Week 5.

If the Ravens are back on the road upon returning from Brazil, and if they had to go a three-plus hour flight, let’s say, sounds like it could be problematic. Where are they before the Brazil game? Could they be home for both games around it?

Would the Ravens prefer a later bye still, even after the early Brazil trip? I suspect they would. The bye is always crucial but we’re not making the bye a category here, because, well, we already know all of those details.

With Houston a travel hub that is often a transfer spot for folks on the way to Brazil, with its geography, would you kind of like that game in Week 2? A chance for a rookie coach and young staff to get their team almost like on old-school mini training camp environment just a few weeks into the season, set up in Houston for a few weeks and maybe staying there longer into the week ahead of the Brazil game?

Three In A Row On The Road?

This is always a dreadful development and it’s not like it doesn’t happen and can’t happen. In 2024, four teams faced the challenge. The Ravens already have some advantages here. Outside of the Brazil trip and Houston, their road games are all quick flights. So flight times are minimal in the worst-case scenario.

They aren’t facing West Coast travel and multiple time zones. Inherently, the Ravens are going to have it easier in domestic miles flown than so many other teams. So the way the degree of difficulty could get cranked up would be by having an extended time on the road consecutively.

Of course, even that would result quite likely in a longer homestand at some point.

“There are tradeoffs to all this stuff, there really are,” Hurney noted. “It’s like a yin/yang dynamic for everything you see that you think can help you in one spot.”

Open At Home? When Do We See The Steelers Without Tomlin?

It’s much easier to win at home than on the road in the NFL in general, and it would stand to reason that might be even more helpful for novice head coaches and completely new coaching staffs. Right?

The Ravens had a tough time winning anywhere a year ago, but were especially dreadful at home in what is normally a fortress for them. With a veteran team, one would think they would be intent on changing that and that Minter could benefit from having the crowd behind him and not against him early on and he starts to figure this all out, and ditto for an offensive coordinator who has never called a play before.

This dynamic is especially intriguing within the AFC North, now that somehow Zac Taylor of the Bengals is the dean of the division with John Harbaugh now with the Giants and Mike Tomlin now with NBC and Kevin Stefanski in Atlanta. That’s a lot.

We’ve come to expect that divisional games will be stacked early and late – especially in recent years – and in some cases AFC North teams haven’t played their first divisional games until around the holiday season.

“This is another one where you could see it both ways,” Hurney said. “On one hand you want to get a rookie head coach early while they are still trying to figure thing out, but you also are getting them before you have film on them, so you’re going in a little more blind.”

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