Detroit Lions Schedule Release: The NFL may have just told us when the Lions’ bye week is, you should be really mad if it’s not this week
The date of the Lions’ Germany game might be telling us something about when their bye will be in 2026
I truly love this time of year when you get those few days before the Detroit Lions’ schedule is released, and you can try to do some detective work and figure out when things happen.
We did that with the Lions’ Germany game on Monday morning. Ultimately, it came down to soccer being the thing that pointed us towards when that game would be. Because the stadium holding it is dominated by the football club that calls it home, the only dates that made sense were November 8th and 15th. We now know it’s the latter.
The Lions’ bye week might be affected by this whole Germany thing
Ok, let’s put our Sherlock Holmes hats on for this one. This game is going to be on November 15th. The very next week is Thanksgiving on November 26th. If you’re a Lions fan, you have to hope that the NFL is looking to give the Lions their bye week right after this game.
That would mean that they would not play in Week 12 and therefore would not play on Sunday, November 22nd. Which would require them to fly back from Germany the night of the 15th. Get home the morning of the 16th, have one day off, and get back to practice on Wednesday for the 22nd’s game.
Then, on top of that, the Lions would have that game on the 22nd and have the super quick turnaround to play on Thanksgiving. That is a sick joke. I don’t know why the NFL would do that to any team.
Now, the NFL has had the Cowboys play on Thanksgiving just days after playing an international game. But that game was in Mexico City. We’re talking about a one-hour time difference here. Not a six-hour time difference. We’re also talking about a two-hour plane ride vs a nearly nine-hour plane ride. These two things are not the same.
So with that, the Lions’ bye week should be Week 12. That gives the Lions a six-day break. Instead of playing a game on the 22nd, they’d go back to practice that day and practice the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th before taking off the 25th and playing on the 26th. This makes the most sense.
Now, of course, I have to reiterate that this is just a prediction based on the information that we have. This is not us reporting that the bye week will be Week 12. It’s worth noting that the Lions team president, Rod Wood, has said that he felt it was unlikely the Lions got a bye week after their Germany game. But that was, of course, before the game was scheduled, and things change all the time. So we’ll see.
But, if it’s not. Everyone should be angry, and I mean everyone. The Lions should be mad because they have to rush home and essentially get one day to recoup, the media should be mad because they get the same thing, and fans should be mad because the possibility of injury just got even bigger.
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