Pros, cons, small details of Washington Commanders 2026 schedule

dan quinn commanders

The Washington Commanders 2026 schedule hasn’t been released for long, yet it has already been broken down every which way. That was certainly the case here at Hogs Haven, where Scott Jennings and I have been writing about it virtually none stop since the official NFL schedule release on Thursday evening.

That includes game-by-game predictions, trends and analysis of how the schedule could help or hurt the Commander situation in 2026.

Now we’re on to the deep dive portion of the NFL schedule analysis, which happens after the analytics folks wrap their tech-savvy minds around it.

There has been some interesting observations about the Commanders schedule and others, with terms like rest differential. That’s the amount of rest heading into a game compared to another team and then combined into a 17-game total.

Arif Hasan broke down rest differential for the entire league.

Brian Burke of ESPNAnalytics also created some charts regarding rest differential from a historic perspective. Commanders fans will like the look of that and some other notes about this 2026 slate.

Will any of these factoids mention matter more than Washington team health and cohesion or the opponents faced? Especially during a rough stretch to start the season? Methinks not.

But they are interesting and something to ponder as we digest the Commanders schedule overall during a slow period in the NFL calendar.

According to Burke, the Commanders have a plus-11 rest differential. (Hasan has it at 10.5). Either way, Dallas, Buffalo and Chicago round out the top four — and one of the highest totals since 2002.