The full NFL schedule drops Thursday night, but we already know one thing: this is going to be a record-breaking year for miles logged. But for the Chicago Bears, they’ll be staying close to home for most of the season.
According to data provided by Bookies.com, all 32 teams will travel a collective 628,873 miles in 2026 (that’s 25 laps around the Earth, or about 2.6 trips to the Moon), largely driven by nine international games that push the league’s footprint to new extremes.
The San Francisco 49ers are the headliner on that front, setting an NFL franchise record with 38,105 miles traveled thanks to their Week 1 game in Melbourne, Australia, and a “home game” in Mexico City.
Kelley L Cox-Imagn ImagesThe Rams aren’t far behind at 34,847 miles. A total of six teams will cover more ground than the circumference of the Earth this season. The Carolina Panthers sit at the opposite end of the spectrum, traveling just 8,740 miles, never venturing west of Minneapolis or east of Philadelphia all year.
Bears’ Road Schedule Is One of the Shortest in the League (With One Big Exception)
The Bears are right there with Carolina near the bottom of the league, logging just 10,676 total road miles in 2026, the third fewest in the NFL. The schedule keeps Chicago largely in familiar territory, which is just fine.
The marquee road trip is the one everyone’s already circling: Seattle at 3,447 miles, a cross-country haul that (depending on how both teams develop) could end up being a January NFC playoff preview in disguise.
© Daniel Bartel-Imagn ImagesWe won’t know where it lands on the calendar until Thursday, but there’s been speculation that the Bears-Seahawks game could be tapped as the NFL’s kickoff special, which would put Chicago’s longest road trip of the season on the very front end of the schedule, with the benefit of extra rest before a Week 2 game. We’ll see.
Wherever Seattle falls, the Bears also make a long eastern trip down to Miami to face the Dolphins at 2,386 miles. The order of everything is TBD, but the distances tell the rest of the story: Carolina at 1,205 miles, Atlanta at 1,176 miles, Buffalo at 912 miles, and then the schedule turns almost entirely regional. Minnesota checks in at 710 miles, Detroit at 473, and the trip to Green Bay, the shortest road game on the slate, is just 367 miles — practically a bus ride by NFL standards.
It’s a road schedule that keeps the Bears in the Central and Eastern time zones for most of the year, with Seattle as the one true outlier. Given how much travel fatigue can factor into a long season, there are worse things than spending most of your away games within driving distance of the Midwest.
Full schedule details hit Thursday night. Everything you need will be right here.
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