On Carolina Panthers schedule, here are the games to circle on your NFL calendar
The Carolina Panthers’ schedule for the 2026 season is out, and you already know the highlights.
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They open Week 1 at home against the Chicago Bears, the team that they are inextricably linked to in the Bryce Young era.
Their bye week comes Week 5, refreshingly early after last season’s Week 14 bye.
The Panthers also play in Monday Night Football. And Thursday Night Football. And Sunday Night Football. And they travel a cumulative 8,700 miles from home over the course of their schedule — the least in the NFL.
But if you’re a fan hoping the Panthers replicate another trip to the NFL postseason — and maybe the franchise’s first winning season since 2017 — where should your eyes go?
Here are a few games to circle on your calendar.
The Panthers open at home for the first time since the 2022 season. That’s a long time. The last time they won a season-opener was even longer — in 2021, when Sam Darnold trounced his old team in the New York Jets. And that’s a problem.
After all, despite the NFL having “a long season,” Week 1 tends to be a powerful predictor for who makes the playoffs. In 2025, only five of the 14 teams to make the playoffs lost their Week 1 contest; some of those teams lost to other playoff opponents, in fact, like Carolina. Same story two years ago: Only five teams went 0-1 and made the postseason in 2024.
Week 1 will certainly have a bunch of juice for other reasons for the Panthers. Carolina made a deal with the Bears ahead of the 2023 draft that sent a boatload of draft picks and offensive playmaker DJ Moore in exchange for the selection of the overall No. 1 pick, which the franchise spent on Young. That’s made Young and 2024 No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams — and the Panthers and Bears as a whole — the subjects of unending comparisons. And Week 1 is another data point in the quest to answer the query: Who won the trade?
Eagles fans are notoriously boisterous. Just ask Panthers guard Robert Hunt, who has stories about Eagles fans climbing onto opposing team buses and wreaking havoc. So the environment in Lincoln Financial Field will be intense and a test of the team’s mettle through the first third of the season.
But it will also indubitably be a great measure of what the Panthers could accomplish on the season. Carolina is matched up with the Eagles because both teams finished first in their respective divisions. The Panthers play three such games. Like every NFL team, they were slated to play teams of equal divisional standing from three other divisions in the NFL. This year, those teams just happened to hail from the NFC West, the AFC West and the NFC East — so the Seahawks, the Broncos and the Eagles.
The Panthers might have to win at least one of these games to stay in playoff contention. And their matchup with Philadelphia, though supremely talented and on the road, might be their best bet. Carolina is coming off their bye a week prior — Week 5 — and have matched up well with the Eagles before. (Remember: They were one Xavier Legette catch away from stunning the Eagles on the road in 2024.)
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You can make the argument that there are multiple three-game stretches on the Panthers’ schedule that could “make or break” the season. Ask former Panthers coach John Fox, and he’d remind you that you’re always two games away from “disaster” — such is the nature of the NFL. But Weeks 8 through 10 caught my attention when trying to pinpoint the most critical fragment of the team’s schedule.
The stretch starts in Green Bay, the team’s Thursday Night Football contest in late October, the second of three prime-time games. Then afterward, the Panthers will face what is again expected to be one of the best defenses in the league in the Denver Broncos (on “long week,” so to speak). Then a massive division game against the Saints — on the road.
Going 0-3 across this stretch is possible and could break the season. Going 2-1, or even 3-0, is possible, too, and could make the season. Carolina’s postseason hopes rests in significant part in what happens these three weeks.
If you’ve never been to a Panthers game before, it’ll be hard to find a more electrifying offense to watch than the one headed by quarterback phenom Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry. And depending on what happens in Year One of their new head coach — Jesse Minter — it could be a great game. The Panthers haven’t faced the Baltimore Ravens since 2022. They’re 4-3 all-time against them, their last win in the series coming in 2018.
It’s pretty remarkable how great Young plays in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It’s statistically baffling. The last two times he’s played on the Falcons’ home turf, he recorded a 123.5 passer rating in 2024 and a 123.2 passer rating in 2025 — the latter of which he threw a franchise-record 448 passing yards and three touchdowns on one ankle and in overtime to deliver the Panthers a key win.
So yes, Young versus the Falcons franchise is always appointment television for the Panthers fan base. What else is? The final week of the NFL season in a division like the NFC South, where teams tend to be so even that playoff decisions are often decided Week 18. (Last year, for instance, it was decided by a strange tiebreaker that the Panthers were beneficiaries of.)
That’s not to discount the other five division contests on the Panthers’ schedule. Playing the Bucs on Monday Night Football in the middle of the season will be interesting — for the national spotlight, yes, but also for the fact that there’s an interesting rivalry brewing between the two franchises. After all, there’s a lot of connective tissue: Panthers head coach Dave Canales against his old coach; Bucs QB Baker Mayfield against his old team. And you could see it in Week 18 last year … things got testy!
But assuming the Panthers are still in the hunt, the division matchup where my eyes first land is Week 18: Panthers vs. Falcons, Young vs. his own success and expectations, a game with everything on the line.
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