While the Lions have this three-game stretch around Thanksgiving nearly every year, the 2026 schedule adds a layer of difficulty with Detroit\u2019s international trip in the midst of all of that. Many fans were hoping the Lions would have a bye week in there to provide some rest after the international trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that Germany game was going to be a mere two weeks before Thanksgiving, and it was important enough to Rod, to the organization, to our international folks, certainly to your wide receiver [Amon-Ra St. Brown] that it made a lot of sense for the Lions to play in that Germany game,\u201d North said.<\/p>\n
In short, the Lions entered the agreement knowing that with the game so close to Thanksgiving, the NFL wasn\u2019t likely to give Detroit a bye week going into that game because their holiday opponent, the Chicago Bears, would be working off a short week.<\/p>\n
Instead, Wood focused his efforts on ensuring the Lions got a mini-bye following the Thanksgiving by putting in a request to not have back-to-back Thursday games like they have done the past two Thanksgiving. That request was granted by the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were really hoping to see that 10-day break post-Thanksgiving as opposed to yet another Thursday to Thursday,\u201d North said. \u201cCredit to the team, really, for volunteering. They knew what they were getting into, and I think it broke the way they hoped it would.\u201d<\/p>\n
The good news for the Lions is that most teams playing an international game this year won\u2019t have the benefit of a bye week the following week. As pointed out by Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, only three of 16 teams playing internationally will have the benefit of a post-international bye game: the Jaguars, the Saints, and Detroit\u2019s Germany opponent, the Patriots. New England was likely given that bye week specifically because they don\u2019t play on Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019re still looking to blame the NFL schedule makers for something, look to the Lions\u2019 opponents after the Munich game. While Detroit knew they weren\u2019t going to get that bye, they probably weren\u2019t happy to find out that their foes that week\u2014the Tampa Bay Buccaneers\u2014will be coming off their bye week. So while the Lions will be adjusting to life back in the states, Tampa will be heading to Detroit well-rested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Lions have this three-game stretch around Thanksgiving nearly every year, the 2026 schedule adds a layer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[270448,4992,99],"class_list":["post-648764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-detroit-lions-schedule","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}