The conversation around the Chicago Bears 2026 season has been dominated by one word: brutal.
Chicago is staring at the league’s toughest strength of schedule (.550). Every team in the NFC North finished with a winning record. They’re playing a first place schedule in the 17 game era, which historically knocks division winners back by an average of four wins the following year.
However, hidden inside that gauntlet is something that could quietly matter more than any opponent they face… The Bears barely have to travel.
According to Bill Speros, Chicago ranks 30th in total projected air miles traveled for the 2026 season with 10,676 miles.
The Bears will cross the Mississippi River just once all year for a trip out to Seattle. That’s it.
Why it actually matters
GettyBears QB Caleb Williams
The Chicago Bears also avoided something that can ruin preparation for weeks at a time: an international game.
The league confirmed the Atlanta Falcons will host the Cincinnati Bengals in Madrid, meaning the Bears’ road game in Atlanta will be played in the United States. Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions will have to deal with an overseas trip to Germany.
For the second straight season, Chicago skips everything that comes with passports, time changes, altered practice weeks, and recovery disruption. That matters more than fans realize. Teams routinely admit it takes two weeks to feel normal again after Europe trips. The Bears won’t have to account for any of it.
But this isn’t just about comfort. It’s also about timing. This is gonna be Year 2 under Ben Johnson and Year 3 for Caleb Williams, with a roster expected to contend for the NFC again after an 11-6 division winning season.
This is the stage where small edges start to show up in January. And less travel means a more consistent weekly routine, more recovery time late in the year, and less cumulative fatigue.
Sure travel doesn’t show up in any box score and it rarely gets discussed outside of schedule release week. But in a 17 game season where rosters get ground down by November and recovery windows shrink every week, fewer miles in the air translates to more recovery time, and that adds up.
So what’s next?
GettyBears Head Coach Ben Johnson
Everything about the strength of schedule math screams that the Bears will take a step backward. It happened to last year’s Lions and it’s happened repeatedly since the NFL moved to 17 games and added a fifth first place opponent.
But Chicago’s path removes one of the biggest hidden stressors in an NFL season. While opponents are boarding six hour flights, crossing time zones, and coming back from Europe, the Bears will be operating inside a tight regional footprint for almost the entire year.
They will be the more rested team in more games than people expect. And when you combine that with elite play-calling and a rapidly developing quarterback, that’s not a small detail.
For a Chicago Bears team that already looks built to compete, that’s one less thing to fight through. And in the playoffs, that could be the difference.
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