Recent Super Bowl history reveals one potential problem with the Lions’ 2026 schedule, and how they can get over it
Does the Lions’ early bye week present a major roadblock for them?
Let’s start here. This doesn’t mean that the Detroit Lions can’t win the Super Bowl at the end of the day. No scheduling requirement makes it happen. It might point to it being a bit harder, though.
The Lions’ early bye week may be working against them — if Super Bowl history matters
So it all started with a tweet from a Lions fan after I wrote about how the Lions are shouldering some of the blame for not having a bye week after their Germany game.
Ok, Boxscore Uncovered, I’m doing that. Here’s what I found. Since the bye week was brought in during the 1990 season, the average Super Bowl winner has a bye week somewhere around Weeks 8 or 9. Let’s take a look at the last 10 Super Bowl winners to see when thier byes were:
| Super Bowl Champs | Bye Week |
| Seahawks | Week 8 |
| Eagles | Week 5 |
| Chiefs | Week 10 |
| Chiefs | Week 8 |
| Rams | Week 11 |
| Bucs | Week 13 |
| Chiefs | Week 12 |
| Patriots | Week 11 |
| Eagles | Week 10 |
| Broncos | Week 9 |
So, it can be done from Week 6. The Philadelphia Eagles showed in 2025 that you can have a Week 5 bye and still win the Super Bowl. But most of the teams that have been doing it lately have been blessed with a much later bye week than what Detroit has right now.
At the end of the day, all the Lions need to do is stay healthy. It’s going to be hard to do for sure. The good news is that while they have that Week 6 bye week, they do technically get a second bye week right after Thanksgiving.
Instead of the usual thing where the Lions play on Thanksgiving and then play the following Thursday again, they now get a 10-day break after Thanksgiving. That’s not a bad thing to have going into December games. It’s going to have to be a big time period for them to recoup and get ready for the playoff push with as much health as they can have.
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