Arizona’s 2026 schedule reads like an extension of last year’s punishment. Three teams from the Cardinals’ own division reached the postseason in 2025, including Super Bowl LX champion Seattle, and Arizona plays each of them twice. Sharp Football Analysis ranks the Cardinals’ slate as the league’s hardest using projected win totals, and PFSN’s own metrics arrive at the same conclusion.
That’s why Ian Cummings landed on Arizona when he and Jacob Infante debated the worst 2026 draw on Football Debate Club.
The NFC West Gauntlet Makes Arizona’s Path Impossible
“It’s got to be the Arizona Cardinals for me,” Cummings said. “They have the highest average impact rate for their opponents and teams, I believe it’s 14.65. A lot of good teams on the schedule, but also their opposing record is 155-133-1, so well over .500 for this year.”
The math is brutal. Seattle finished 14-3 and won the Super Bowl. The Rams won 12 games and reached the NFC Championship. The 49ers also won 12 games and reached the Divisional Round. Three NFC teams crossed 12 wins last season, all of them in the NFC West, and the Cardinals draw six matchups against that group before anything else.
The rotation pours salt in the wound. Arizona pulls the AFC West, which means Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, plus playoff teams in Denver and Los Angeles. The NFC East crossover brings Philadelphia and Dallas. Detroit comes off the schedule from the NFC North side.
“They’ve got teams like the Lions, the Broncos, AFC West,” Cummings continued. “But the Cowboys can be very tough this year as well, with that offense firing on all cylinders. The Chiefs, the Eagles, and then the 49ers again late in the year. That division alone makes it very, very tough, but having those other teams in the mix too makes it especially difficult.”
For a team that went 3-14 last season and just hired Mike LaFleur as its third head coach in five years, the calendar offers no soft stretches. Cummings outlined the worst case: “If they don’t get a win early on, they could be looking at going 0-11 at a certain point.”
Why Miami’s Schedule Falls Just Short
Jacob Infante built a defensible argument for the Dolphins. By 2025’s opponent winning percentage, Miami’s slate (.542) ranks second only to Chicago. Infante focused on the divisional collision course.
“You’re playing the Bills and the Patriots twice in one season. You also have the NFC North to go up against,” Infante said. “Every single one of those teams finished with an above .500 record in 2025. I don’t think any of those teams got considerably worse. I’d argue they didn’t get worse at all.”
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That holds up, as all four NFC North teams finished above .500 in 2025, just the second time in the Super Bowl era a division has pulled that off. Add the full AFC West rotation, plus crossover games against the 49ers, Bengals, and Colts, and the Dolphins face nine 2025 playoff teams in 2026.
The case stops short for a structural reason. The AFC East is not the NFC West. Buffalo and New England both made the playoffs, and New England reached the Super Bowl. The Jets did not. Two of the Dolphins’ six division games come against a team that has not hit double-digit wins since 2015.
The Cardinals get no such reprieve, as they are the only NFC West roster that didn’t win 12 games last year, and Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles all project as playoff contenders again.
Both ranking methods agree on Arizona. Sharp’s forward-looking model has the Cardinals as the league’s hardest schedule. The 2025 opponent record method has them tied for fourth-hardest. No other team sits that low across both lists. The Bears top the retrospective ranking but drop to 27th on projected totals. The Dolphins stay near the bottom on both, but don’t share Arizona’s misfortune of playing the NFL’s deepest division every other week.
Cummings won this one before the schedule even dropped. The official release Thursday night just stamped it.
