Bears hit with bizarre NFL scheduling quirk that team hasn’t seen in 58 years plus 10

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There are always some crazy quirks when it comes to the NFL schedule and this year is no different. The one weird thing about quirks is that not all of them are created equally. Some teams will be happy about the quirks on their schedule while plenty of other teams won’t be so thrilled with the quirks they’re handed by the league office.

So who got the craziest quirks? That’s a great question, so let’s find out.

Here are 11 of the weirdest quirks on the 2022 NFL schedule.

Bears will be spending December at home. The Bears got an especially unique scheduling quirk: They don’t play a SINGLE road game during the month of December, marking the first time that’s happened to the Bears since 1964. The Bears will play a home game against the Packers in Week 13 (Dec. 4). They have a bye in Week 14 (Dec. 11) and then they follow that up with a home game in Weeks 15 (Dec. 18) and 16 (Dec. 24). Although they do play a road game in Week 17, that game falls on Jan. 1, which means they have ZERO road games in December.

Chiefs get handed killer opening schedule. With their 2022 schedule, the Chiefs will become the first team in NFL history to open a season with eight straight games against teams that finished above .500 the prior season (Via Elias Sports Bureau). The stretch starts in Week 1 when they travel to Arizona and then continues to Week 9. Here’s a look at their brutal opening eight-game gauntlet: At Cardinals, Chargers, at Colts, at Buccaneers, Raiders, Bills, 49ers, bye, Titans.

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Jets and Ravens with bizarre start to schedule. The Jets will start the season by playing every team in the AFC North over the first four weeks marking the first time since the 1970 merger that the Jets have played four straight games against the same division at any point in a season. On the Ravens’ end, they’ll be starting the season with four straight games against the AFC East, marking the first time they’ve opened the season against four teams from the same division.

Commanders go back-to-back. The Commanders have an especially unique quirk on their schedule: They’ll be playing back-to-back games against the Giants starting in Week 13. After playing on the road in New York that week, the Commanders will have a bye in Week 14 before playing host to the Giants in Week 15. This marks just the second time since 1991 that an NFL team has played back-to-back regular-season games against the same an opponent. That being said, the NFL is clearly getting more comfortable with the idea because the only other time it happened over the past 30 years came last season with the Browns facing the Ravens in back-to-back games.

Rough road to start the season. There are only three teams in the NFL who will have to play their first TWO games on the road this year and those teams are: The Buccaneers, Colts and Patriots.