Las Vegas Raiders opponents 2026: Who’s on the schedule, how easy or hard will their schedule be

The Las Vegas Raiders entered the 2025 season with the hope that new head coach Pete Carroll would turn things around and usher in an era of sustained success for the franchise. Instead, the exact opposite happened. The season never truly got off the ground as they finished with the league’s worst record at 3-14, guaranteeing them the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Geno Smith was a turnover machine throughout the year at quarterback while the offensive line struggled to open up holes for rookie running back Ashton Jeanty.

Carroll was fired immediately following the season and whoever the organization tabs as the new head coach will have the luxury of selecting the franchise cornerstone with the top pick in April’s draft. Other things like Maxx Crosby’s future with the team will have to be addressed this offseason as well, but for now, we at least know who they will face in 2026.

The Raiders will have eight home games and nine road games next season pending the announcement of the matchups for the 2026 international games. The rotation will include matchups against the entire NFC West and AFC East, along with their usual six divisional games within the AFC West. Since they finished fourth in the division, they will be matched up with the last-place finishers of the NFC South (Saints), AFC South (Titans), and AFC North (Browns) to round out the 17-game schedule.

Las Vegas has a tough schedule on paper next season as it will have nine matchups against 2025 playoff participants. Four of those matchups will take place within the division against the Broncos and Chargers and of course, the difficulty of the Chiefs matchups will depend on when Patrick Mahomes returns from his ACL/LCL tears. The team isn’t helped by getting the AFC East and NFC West in the rotation and there’s a strong chance that they could be facing all four participants of the conference championship games. If the Raiders do draft Fernando Mendoza or Dante Moore as their QB of the future, it’d probably be a good idea to let a veteran handle the first part of this difficult slate and throw the rookie in later on.