If Kyle Shanahan was unhappy about the late-season scheduling for the San Francisco 49ers at the end of the 2025 campaign, one can only imagine how he feels about the travel schedule they will face in 2026.
With games in Australia and Mexico City on the docket, the 49ers are expected to rack up more travel miles than any team in NFL history during the upcoming season.
Following the 49ers’ playoff win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Jan. 11, Shanahan publicly advocated for the NFL to schedule their divisional round matchup with the Seattle Seahawks for the following Sunday.
“Very strongly,” Shanahan said when asked how strongly he would prefer to play on Jan. 18. “I’m expecting it to be Saturday, but hopefully, if the NFL is cool and understanding, they’ll make it Sunday.”
The league didn’t oblige, as the game was scheduled for Saturday the 17th. That’s not the reason San Francisco lost 41-6 to the Seahawks, but it did highlight how compacted the team’s schedule had become.
From Week 16 through the divisional round, the 49ers played five games in 26 days. They finished the regular season with a three game stretch playing on Monday night in Week 16, Sunday night in Week 17 and Saturday night in Week 18.
The Australia game between the 49ers and Los Angeles Rams is expected to be played in Week 1, and could serve as the 2026 NFL season opener rather than the traditional Thursday night game featuring the defending Super Bowl champion.
The first Thursday night game will still feature the Seahawks, as the defending champs, playing a to-be-determined opponent on NBC.
Per The Athletic’s Jayna Bardahl, the 49ers-Rams game is expected to be played on Wednesday, Sept. 9. This is being done in part to give both teams additional rest prior to Week 2 as a result of the travel involved with going to Australia.
It’s not uncommon for the teams in the AFC and NFC West to log the most travel miles in a given season just because there are fewer teams in that area of the country.
Last season, for example, four of the top five teams in miles traveled during the regular season were in the west divisions. The Los Angeles Chargers, who led the league with 37,086 miles, opened the 2025 campaign against the Kansas City Chiefs in Brazil.
Per the NFL’s operations website, the AFC and NFC West were the only divisions that traveled at least 100,000 miles in 2025. The AFC South was the only other division that traveled at least 80,000 miles (91,234).
The 49ers will be the designated home team for the Mexico City game. Their list of non-divisional road opponents in 2026 includes games at the Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons.