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The ACC and others back a 24-team CFP, awaiting SEC's decision.
The San Francisco 49ers' 2026 schedule, initially seen as favorable, is complicated by extensive travel requirements. Despite having the eighth-easiest slate in the NFL, travel could impact their performance.
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San Francisco 49ers' favorable 2026 schedule just got a lot more difficult originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
By all accounts, the San Francisco 49ers have a favorable schedule during the 2026 season, but one aspect of it will make things more difficult.
According to Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis, the Niners have the eighth-easiest slate in the NFL based on win totals from Vegas oddsmakers, which is a superior method to using opponents' 2025 win percentages.
However, the difficult part of the schedule comes in all the traveling the Niners have to do.
Bill Speros of Bookies.com crunched the number of travel miles for each team in 2026 and San Francisco leads the league with 38,105, which is a little over 3,000 miles more than the next closest team, the Los Angeles Rams (34,857).
Of course, the travel miles for the Niners and Rams are inflated by the 15,738-mile trip to Australia both teams will be making in Week 1.
The 49ers face extensive travel requirements, which complicates their otherwise favorable schedule.
The 49ers have the eighth-easiest schedule in the NFL based on Vegas oddsmakers' win totals.
Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis provided insights into the 49ers' schedule and its challenges.
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But even if you take out that trek, the Niners would still be traveling 22,367 miles, which would amount to the seventh-most in the NFL.
San Francisco will also be smashing an NFL record in 2026. Speros notes that the Niners will cross a whopping 58 time zones, breaking the all-time mark of 42, a record set by the Los Angeles Chargers in 2025.
As compared to the least traveled team in the NFL for 2026, the Carolina Panthers (8,740 miles), who will travel a little over half of the amount of miles the Niners will for their trip to Australia alone, San Fran is traveling over four times the mileage Carolina will.
The Niners are obviously no strangers to traveling a bunch during an NFL season.
This is pretty much standard for a team on the west coast. In 2025, four of the top 10 most-traveled teams were teams from that area of the country, and the Niners were included in that group.
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