The NFL unveiled its 2023 schedule Thursday night. Not with the bang the league may have hoped for on a night filled with playoff hockey and basketball, but certainly more than a whimper.
Giving fans the opportunity to plan out home games and road trips, 272 games, all of which we already knew but most of which we did not know when, officially went live May 11. The schedule reveal is the moment where wild guesses about your team’s record level up to “slightly educated.” With homestands and bye weeks on the docket, it gets a little easier to predict how each team will do.
And for these six teams, that’s a problem. Some teams were hamstrung by the league’s scheduling mechanism and unbalanced divisions. Others were subject to entirely too many Thursday night games (e.g. one or more). A few hit both categories.
These are the six teams whose awful luck shined brightest once the ink dried on their schedules.
1
New England Patriots
Worst three-game stretch: Weeks 1-3
- vs. Philadelphia Eagles
- vs. Miami Dolphins
- at New York Jets
It was abundantly clear 2023 would be a challenging year for Bill Belichick from the start. Aside from the shakiness that continues to plague his post-Tom Brady quarterback room, New England’s place in the AFC East meant the upcoming season would feature a litany of Super Bowl contenders. Two games each against the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins were a problem and the New York Jets were frisky even before adding a four-time MVP at quarterback.
But the Patriots also have to deal with intra-conference showdowns against the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs (as well as a Las Vegas Raiders rematch that will struggle to live up to the unintentional hilarity of its predecessor) and an inter-conference slate against the NFC East, which hosted three playoff teams in 2022 and should be similarly brutal this fall. The closest thing to a surefire win on the schedule is a game against the rebuilding Indianapolis Colts — a team eager to stoke the embers of the 2000s-2010s rivalry that often decided the fate of the AFC.
There are no easy outs on Belichick’s schedule and it’s not because he’s coming off a Super Bowl year. It’s some horrible luck for a franchise about whom no one will lend their sympathy.
New England opens with the reigning NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles, then gets the Dolphins, Jets and Cowboys to set the stage for what could be an 0-4 start. Per DraftKings, the Patriots aren’t favored in any of their first four games and only three of their 17 matchups this season.
2
New York Giants
Worst three-game stretch: Weeks 4-6
- vs. Seattle Seahawks
- at Miami Dolphins
- at Buffalo Bills
The Giants exceeded expectations by qualifying for the playoffs and then beating the Minnesota Vikings in the wild card round. But that revival in head coach Brian Daboll’s first season came thanks to a fairly soft schedule; New York went 7-1-1 against non-playoff teams en route to a 9-7-1 finish.
That led to a third-place showing in the NFC East and a significantly higher degree of difficulty in 2023. The Giants will have to roll through a Seattle team that peaked early last fall and reloaded this spring before facing AFC contenders in Buffalo and Miami in October
That’s a rough stretch, but it pales in importance to a pair of matchups with reigning NFC champion Philadelphia in the final three weeks of the regular season in a volley that could determine the division champion. A Week 13 bye could help fix any problems that arise over the course of play, but it’s stuck between two of the easier games on the docket — matchups with the unproven quarterbacks of the Patriots and Packers.
3
Seattle Seahawks
Worst three-game stretch: Weeks 11-13
- at Los Angeles Rams
- vs. San Francisco 49ers (TNF)
- at Dallas Cowboys (TNF, three games in 11 days)
2023 was always going to be unkind to Seattle. Traveling from the Pacific Northwest left the Seahawks to travel more than 30,000 miles for nine away games. That’s more than anyone else in the league — including the nine teams who’ll play games in Europe as part of the league’s International Series.
The scheduling powers got even meaner on top of that. Seattle’s bye comes at the earliest possible moment in Week 5, meaning a playoff push is going to feature 13 straight games. Weeks 12-14 feature back-to-back Thursday night showdowns with the 49ers and Cowboys, meaning the Seahawks will cram three vital games into an 11-day stretch.
The following weeks? A road game at San Francisco, then home to face the Philadelphia Eagles. Absolutely brutal.
According to my sources Seahawks have back to back Thursday games. 3 games in 12 days! @qdiggs6
— Tyler Lockett (@TDLockett12) May 11, 2023
4
Pittsburgh Steelers
Worst three-game stretch: Weeks 16-18
- vs. Cincinnati Bengals
- at Seattle Seahawks
- at Baltimore Ravens
There are four games in which the Steelers are favored to win by at least four points. Three of those game in the first 10 weeks of the season — and that includes a Week 6 bye.
Pittsburgh rallied late last year to turn a 3-7 campaign into a winning record. That’ll be a much tougher road in 2023. The back half of the season includes games against rebuilding franchises like the Colts and Cardinals. Unfortunately, it ends with the Cincinnati Bengals, a trip to Seattle and a rivalry game against the Baltimore Ravens in Maryland. In fact, five of those final eight games are on the road. The second-toughest home opponent in that stretch behind the Bengals will be the Patriots.
Mike Tomlin’s run as the league’s least appreciated head coach continued last season as he rallied his team over .500 despite a rookie quarterback and shaky offensive line. Now he’s got a hopefully improved Kenny Pickett, an absolutely aced draft class and a chance for both parties to prove themselves in a pressure cooker of a schedule during the holiday season.
5
Miami Dolphins
Worst three-game stretch: Weeks 16-18
- vs. Dallas Cowboys
- at Baltimore Ravens
- vs. Buffalo Bills
Miami falls into the same trap as the Patriots do thanks to the AFC East’s newfound competitive balance, and its pairing with a similarly blessed NFC counterpart. Things get hot and heavy early in south Florida thanks to October games against the Bills, Giants and Eagles, but the Dolphins’ Week 10 bye is followed by winnable showdowns with the Raiders, Titans and Commanders to build momentum for a playoff push.
That momentum is going to have to carry them through a tough final stretch. Three 2022 playoff teams await in the final three weeks (as does a home showdown with Aaron Rodgers in Week 15). The Cowboys and Ravens will arguably be better in 2023 than they were last fall. The Bills could fall victim to an aging secondary or find a new gear after adding a first round tight end to Josh Allen’s passing arsenal. Either way, there’s no time for head coach Mike McDaniel to catch his breath once Christmas music becomes unescapable on terrestrial radio.
Last year’s Miami team went 1-5 down the stretch thanks to the combination of a tough schedule and Tua Tagovailoa’s absence due to a head injury. 2023 gives the Dolphins the chance to prove this was an outlier and not a theme for a franchise in search of its first playoff win since Dave Wannstedt was head coach.
6
Washington Commanders
Worst three-game stretch: Weeks 10-12
- at Seattle Seahawks
- vs. New York Giants
- at Dallas Cowboys
A Week 14 bye could be a much-needed respite. Or it could give Washington the time needed to write the obituary for Ron Rivera’s tenure as head coach. His Commanders have a brutal schedule that includes four different stretches with back-to-back games (or longer!) against 2022 playoff teams.
Washington is favored in two of its first five games (the season opener versus the Cardinals and in Week 5 against the Bears) and not even once in the dozen that follow. Rivera gets the Bills and Eagles in Weeks 3 and 4, then the Seahawks, Giants, Cowboys and Dolphins all leading up to a bye week that falls on the latest possible date. An easy return against the Rams then gives way to the Jets, 49ers and Cowboys, all of whom should be in the thick of the playoff race at this point.
Rivera held on to his job despite sliding out of the playoff race late last season. He’ll be either throwing Jacoby Brissett or Sam Howell up against this litany of top-10 defenses, which means even if the Commanders win it’ll be ugly. Washington may not have as far to fall as the other teams on this list, but the schedule gods have given them a rare opportunity to be one of the league’s least watchable teams for weeks at a time.
