The Chargers 2026 schedule is officially set.

Chargers.com recently caught up with Blake Jones, the NFL Senior Director, Broadcasting, to get an inside look at how the 2026 edition of the Bolts schedule came to be.

Here's our 1-on-1 conversation with Jones:

Let's start with a general question. When the league office is putting the NFL schedule together, how do you view the Chargers from afar?

"Yeah, the Chargers are one of those teams who are always at the top of the conference, obviously competing for a division title the past few seasons, so they're a team we know is going to be featured in primetime windows, in a big national doubleheader game on CBS. We know we are going to be featuring them throughout the season and we know, obviously, they have a shared building so it's additional juggling like we do in New York. We've got to figure out the right mix and cadence there, but they're a team that's going to be a great matchup across the entire league and we know we're going to feature them regularly throughout the season."

The Chargers have a rare Week 1 opponent in Arizona. What went into the Cardinals being the choice to open the season?

"As you can imagine, Week 1 always starts with making sure we get set for the Kickoff Game as we know we're going to start the season off that way. And then you have an international game and then we look at some other things around the league where that are in unique windows. It's just something where there's a little bit of a different shuffle every time. The Chargers, for example, you see they have primetime games throughout the year. If any give shuffle had out them up against one of those teams in that week, it would have meant they were more likely to end up in one of those primetime windows. But it's just a different shuffle every time we see it. They're going to play the Cardinals and it was just the right fit within the building's schedule there. No specific magic to it, other than on this particular mix, that's the way it came out and was a good fit for Week 1."

You mentioned the juggling involved with the schedule. SoFi Stadium has concerts in Weeks 3 and 4, so what excites the league about Chargers road games in Buffalo and Seattle?

"Obviously, the Super Bowl champions, any big matchup they've got is going to be appealing and definitely something to watch closely. That's a big one for sure against the Chargers. And then Buffalo is another one of those teams in the AFC that is a perennial contender with deep playoff runs. These are the matchups that are going to be engaging and that our fans are going to want to see. I think they both fill out some really great lineups for Sunday afternoons. It happens to fall that way because of a concert block, but it's just two great matchups to feature that will be great for both FOX and CBS."

The Chargers first primetime game is against the Ravens on Monday Night Football. It feels like that one was going to be on national TV all the way give the coaching and front office connections, no?

"All those connections really just add on top of what is already a great AFC contender matchup. It's two really good football teams, two great quarterbacks going at it. That one, we used to call it The Harbaugh Bowl, but it still has that same level of engagement and same level of excitement and we wanted to make sure it was going to be in a featured window. We really liked it on Monday night and Week 10 is ideally when teams are starting to hit their stride. To see those two teams battle each other that week is going to be really exciting."

The Chargers have a Week 7 bye and it falls in the middle of a seven-game gauntlet against top-tier teams from Weeks 3 to 10. Was the bye put there to help break that section up a bit?

"Not necessarily. I think byes are ones that we are not carving out in a specific week. It's such a complex puzzle that they are certainly things we have to let float. We go through thousands of schedules. Nobody is going to get a bye earlier than Week 5 and nobody gets a bye in Week 12 because games are so spread out over that window. And nobody gets a bye after Week 14. So, within those parameters, we kind of let the puzzle do its work in our computer software. Not necessarily saying, 'Hey, you've got these stretch of teams so here's a bye to catch your breath.' But when it falls there organically, it is a good fit and I think it could be a good fit for the Chargers in Week 7."

The Chargers have four cross-country trips to Buffalo, Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Miami. Do you always try to space those out if possible?

"We look at it the same way that we do of East Coast teams having to play out there. If teams are interested in pairing back-to-back games together and staying on the East Coast, we'll factor that in. If it happens, then it's OK for them to be in consecutive weeks. If a team is against that, then we make sure we're not stacking trips like that so we avoid something like East Coast trip, home game and then back to the East Coast. There are still trips that have to get made and they're going to be tough wherever they fall, we just try not to stack them on top of each other."

The Chargers play four games where their opponent is coming off of a bye. Was that just a quirk in how the schedule was made?

"It's a little bit of that. We do thousands of different solved puzzles and byes can really bounce around. That combination, combined with any given team and the order in which they play their opponents, has the chance to fluctuate one direction or another. We ultimately landed on this one. However, we've also looked closely at a lot of data over the past few years and what we've found is that we are not far off from a 50-50 [winning percentage] in playing opponents coming off their bye. I think it's no longer the obvious disadvantage it used to be. We're seeing trends of teams staying in rhythm being beneficial rather than teams breaking for their bye and then coming back to get ready. But more broadly, teams that are playing well tend to win those games in a string of a good season. And teams that are broadly having a down year tend to have a rough time with those games. It really tends to coincide with the team's overall record. We certainly don't want a team facing a team coming off its bye throughout the entirety of the season ... but it's something we don't automatically think is a competitive disadvantage like it may have been in some older methods on how teams handled their bye."

The Chargers play Week 18 in Denver again. What is the NFL envisioning for that one?

"As you know, Week 18 is always going to be a full slate of divisional matchups so you've got three possible opponents. Look, I think that's obviously a game we expect to have significant divisional impact and it could have significant AFC impact as everybody is either trying to secure a division title of finalize seeding going into the playoffs. It's obviously two teams we expect to be competing for the division but also play a big role in where that seeding ends up in the AFC for the start of the playoffs."

We'll end with a preseason question. Why are the Chargers playing three teams in the preseason they will also see in the regular season? How rare is that?

"It's something where, if we had our full choices, we'd love to avoid those. But the interesting part is that the Chargers and Rams will play each other in the preseason every year. That's a no brainer to take advantage of the shared building and eliminate a road trip from the preseason schedule. We're also looking to generally minimize travel so San Francisco and Los Angeles are matchups we'd like to make in the preseason. They just happen to be playing each other in the regular season. Then, as you get outside of those West Coast teams, we're obviously never going to send you to a divisional opponent, but now you're looking at Houston and similar cities along that stretch that are the next phases of teams to match up against. So, we did end up with what we call 'regular-season duplicates' but that was also exacerbated this year because the AFC West plays the AFC West. It gives us great regular-season matchups but also creates some preseason conflict."