The Detroit Lions 2020 schedule has been released, so let’s take a look at the highlights and lowlights for the upcoming season.
Nationally televised games
After a disappointing 3-12-1 season, it’s not overly surprising that the Lions were not awarded any primetime television games. In fact, the only regular-season game that will be nationally televised is on Thanksgiving day against the Houston Texans. Thankfully it’s not the Chicago Bears for the third season in a row.
The Lions do have two late in the season flex games in Week 15 (at Tennessee Titans) and Week 16 (versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) that could get pushed into the national spotlight if both teams are playing well and have potential playoff implications.
If one of the two games does get flexed, the early money has to be on the Week 16 game, as the Bucs, with a ton of offensive talent and Tom Brady in the fold, are expected to make for great television.
Additionally, if you’re looking for a bright spot, the Lions will have a pre-season nationally televised game on Thursday, August, 20th at home against the New York Jets at 8:00 PM EST on ESPN.
Lions have an early BYE Week …again
The Lions BYE week will be in Week 5 for the second conservative season. This marks the fourth season in a row where the Lions have had to take their BYE week in the first half of their schedule as they had a BYE Week in Week 6 in 2018 and Week 7 in 2017.
Away early, home late
The Lions open up their schedule at home against the Bears, but after Week 1, they will only host one other home game (versus the New Orleans Saints) over the next six weeks of the season.
One of the benefits of traveling early on in the season is there will be a lot of home cooking down the stretch. Four of the Lions final six games will be in the friendly confines of Ford Field, ending the season with back-to-back home games against the Bucs (Week 16) and Minnesota Vikings (Week 17).
Positive weather games
Players are always concerned about where they will play games late in the year hoping for better weather and this year Lions players surely happy with this outcome.
Of the games the Lions play after Thanksgiving, only Week 13 (December 6) at Chicago could be problematic. After that, three of the final four games are in the comfy dome of Ford Field, while their late December away game is in Tennessee, where the weather typically sits at 49-degrees and rarely drops below 33-degrees throughout the month.
Opponents 2019 record
The 2019 record of the Lions opponents is 103-104-1, which doesn’t seem terrible, but when you factor in the Lions play their division opponents twice that number goes up to 134-121-1. Less fun.
Spinning this back to the positive, when looking at the 134-121-1 record, the majority of those wins will be traveling to Ford Field. The records of the Lions home opponents was 71-57, meaning the Lions will get their tougher opponents (on average) at home while having to face teams on the road who had a collective record of 63-64-1 last year.
It’s not always about who teams face, but also when and where.
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