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Compute NFL Regular Season Matchups

Source: R/nfl_regular_season.R
nfl_regular_season.Rd

Use standings of a completed season to compute all matchups (including location) of the following season based on NFL regular season schedule rules.

Usage

nfl_regular_season(previous_season_standings)

Arguments

previous_season_standings

NFL standings of the previous season as computed by nfl_standings().

Value

A data frame with one row per team/opponent matchup (this means 544 rows in a 272 games season), including the following columns:

season

The season following the season in previous_season_standings

team

The team abbreviation of the team we are looking at

opp

The team abbreviation of the team's opponent

opp_type

The opponent type. This will be on of the following.

div_a

Divisional matchup on the road

div_h

Divisional matchup at home

intra_conf

Full division matchup intra conference

cross_conf

Full division matchup cross conference

div_rank

Same division rank matchup intra conference

cross_17th

17th game, same division rank matchup cross conference

location

Either home or away. It's impossible to predict neutral site games

Details

Since the 2021 season, NFL teams play a 17 game schedule. NFL operations explains the anatomy of a schedule here https://operations.nfl.com/gameday/nfl-schedule/creating-the-nfl-schedule/.

A team's opponents are determined based on the following rules:

  • 6 games against divisional opponents

  • 4 games against teams from a division within its conference

  • 4 games against teams from a division in the other conference

  • 2 games against teams from the remaining divisions in its conference that finished the previous season on the same division rank

  • 1 game ("the 17th game") against a non-conference opponent from a division that the team is not scheduled to play and that finished the previous season on the same division rank

The host of matchups rotates regularly. Rotation has different cycles as explained below. Here is how hosts are determined:

  • Each team hosts 3 division matchups

  • Intra conference division matchups rotate in a 6 year cycle

  • Cross conference division matchups rotate in a 8 year cycle

  • Intra conference divisional rank matchups rotate in a 6 year cylce

  • AFC teams host the 17th game in odd years, NFC teams host in even years

All rotation tables are stored inside nflseedR and used to compute the compete regular season matchup table.

Examples

# Compute all 2026 matchups using standings from the 2025 season

# First load games of the 2025 season
games <- nflreadr::load_schedules(2025)

# Second compute standings
standings <- nflseedR::nfl_standings(games, ranks = "DIV")
#> ℹ 14:45:50 | Initiate Standings & Tiebreaking Data
#> ℹ 14:45:50 | Compute Division Ranks

# Finally compute matchups
matchups <- nflseedR::nfl_regular_season(standings)

# Overview output
str(matchups)
#> 'data.frame':	544 obs. of  5 variables:
#>  $ season  : int  2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 2026 ...
#>  $ team    : chr  "ARI" "ARI" "ARI" "ARI" ...
#>  $ opp     : chr  "DAL" "DEN" "DET" "KC" ...
#>  $ opp_type: chr  "intra_conf" "cross_conf" "div_rank" "cross_conf" ...
#>  $ location: chr  "away" "home" "home" "away" ...