There is clearly no shortage of work for the New York Jets to do this offseason. After finishing 3- 14 this past season, the 15th consecutive campaign without making the postseason, Aaron Glen and the Jets front office will have much to do to convince the fanbase that the plan is working. Let’s take a look at what the Jets strength of schedule looks like for next season.
Unless something surprising happens trade-wise and in free agency, and the Jets draft picks are home runs, NFL betting sites will consider the Jets among the outsiders for Super Bowl LXI going into the 2026 season. The first order of business, however, will be improving on those three wins in the 2025 season.
Can the Jets bounce back?
Is it likely? It’s interesting to note where the Jets are in the SoS (Strength of Schedule) lists for the 2026 season. The Jets SoS includes teams with a combined 0.517 win percentage in 2025, making it the 11th most difficult in the league. That’s up from the projected SoS from last season, where opponents had a 0.460-win record in 2024. Going into the season, the Jets had what was thought to be an easy schedule. As it unfolded, the schedule turned out to be harder than projected last season.
But how much does SoS really matter? It’s a metric that only makes sense if all teams are at the same level as they were the previous season. That simply does not happen in football, or any other team sport. Yes, sometimes teams remain contenders over the course of seasons, but there is also an ebb and flow as they make smart acquisitions, hire new coaches, and so on.
The Patriots upended 2024 form
To give you an example, the New England Patriots were a 4-13 team in 2024, thus the two games the Jets had against the Patriots in the 2025 season were considered beneficial to the Jets’ SoS. Of course, we know that the Super Bowl-bound Patriots were incredibly improved in the 2025 season, posting a 14-3 record and, yes, beating the Jets at home and on the road.
We don’t know the exact dates yet, but you can see the Jets opponents below:
Home: Bills, Dolphins, Patriots, Browns, Broncos, Packers, Raiders, Vikings
Road: Bills, Dolphins, Patriots, Cardinals, Bears, Lions, Chiefs, Chargers, Titans
Right off the bat, you can perhaps pick a couple of teams that underperformed in the 2025 season, making us somewhat dubious of the SoS metric. The Chiefs, for instance, finished 6-11 for the 2025 regular season, in what was a hugely disappointing campaign for a team that had made five of the previous six Super Bowls. It’s more than possible that the Chiefs bounce back in 2026, especially if Patrick Mahomes’ recovery goes well.
Similarly, teams like the Vikings and Lions, both of whom failed to make the Playoffs, were arguably better than their 9-8 records. They had the misfortune of playing in the brutal NFC North, the only division in which all teams posted winning records in 2025, alongside the Packers and Bears. We aren’t saying that those teams will definitely improve in 2026 or stay the same; it’s just that 9-8 might be a bit misleading.
All of this is, of course, speculative. We don’t know if the Chiefs will bounce back in 2026, and perhaps the Lions and Vikings end up regressing, but the point is that we just don’t know who will improve, who will take a step back, and who will stay the same. And that makes SoS slightly unreliable. It does not mean it’s useless, far from it, as there is a correlation between some teams doing well from one season to the next, but it should be considered a rough indicator of the strength of your team’s schedule.