Back in April, ESPN insider Adam Schefter said the league was targeting a date between May 12 and May 14 for its 2026 NFL schedule release. And while a May release of the schedule is still likely, we might have to wait longer than expected to see it come to fruition.
Mike North, who serves as the league’s vice president of broadcast planning, shed some light on when the 2026 NFL schedule release could drop during a recent appearance on the “It’s Always Game Day in Buffalo” podcast. And during the interview, North said that the release could be delayed to the third week in May.
“Most fans know full well that the schedule comes out in mid-May now,” North said on the “It’s Always Game Day in Buffalo” podcast (via CBS Sports). “That’s what we’ve done the last five or six years. That’s sort of our target. Is there any magic to May 12, 13, 14? No. Is there any real downside to [May] 19, 20 or 21? No.
“I don’t think it’s coming out in June, but that second week in May has been our target the last few years, but I don’t know that it’s impossible to think about that third week in May.”
There was a time when the league’s schedule drop came out in April. But more recently, the league has been pushing its schedule out during the second week in May, with teams posting viral videos to really drive home how big a deal this is to them and their fans. And while that could still be the league’s targeted date, it sounds like we could be in store for a wait. Bummer.
(Photo by Jeff Bottari/Getty Images)When is the 2026 NFL Schedule Coming Out?
The good news is that it doesn’t sound like we are in for a ridiculous wait. From players to coaches to league executives, the NFL is full of creatures of habit. And because the powers that be in the league’s offices insist on turning everything into an event and making sure every month on the calendar has something for NFL fans to turn on and watch, the NFL schedule release slid into May once, and it has been there since. I simply cannot imagine the NFL kicking the can down the line any further than it already is when it comes to the league’s schedule release.
2026 NFL SCHEDULE ANALYSIS: How Tough is the Bears’ Strength of Schedule?
With that being said, whenever the NFL schedule release *DOES* come out, there is an expectation that the Bears will be prominently featured. More on that from Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, who recently predicted the Bears will be all over the television map in 2026:
You already knew this, but @ProFootballTalk shares a friendly reminder for Bears fans to be prepared for a 2026 schedule that's all over the place.The NFL is going to ride the Bears in primetime."Get ready for Bears games to be all over the map this year," he says. pic.twitter.com/HRaTchy64g
— 104.3 The Score (@thescorechicago) May 5, 2026This is what is in store for Chicago’s football team when the NFL schedule is (eventually) released:
“A big part of it is they love to engineer the primetime windows to have the best games. And when the Bears are now considered one of the best teams, and they’re a big draw — they had more than 30 million tune in for the wild-card game on Prime Video on a Saturday night in January — the Bears are going to get jerked all over the place this year. They’re going to be playing short weeks, they’re going to be playing primetime.”
Sigh. I don’t think Florio is wrong here. As much as I — and, apparently, coaches around the league — love a traditional noon CT start on a Sunday, the league seeing a competitive Bears team could lead to an NFL schedule generously sprinkling Chicago’s football team into prime viewing windows. Last year, we saw the Bears play on Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Black Friday, and in an island game on Saturday. So it isn’t a stretch to think they could be pushed into the limelight again. In addition to your regularly scheduled prime viewing slate, the Bears could be part of the league’s Christmas Day triple-header or placed into a Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions.
In the end, these are first-world problems. If the NFL schedule has the Bears in prime time a lot, it should be seen as a sign of belief that this team is going places. After all, they don’t put teams riding the struggle bus in a ton of prime viewing windows — and for obvious reasons.
CHECK OUT THE BN BEARS PODCAST: Apple | Spotify | YouTube
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