Detroit Lions to play Thursday night season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs

The NFL is buying into the buzz around the Detroit Lions, as they’ll play the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 regular season opener.

The Detroit Lions won’t be playing the Kansas City Chiefs over in Germany, as early buzz faded to the official announcement confirming it. Instead, per a report from Jordan Schultz of The Score and later confirmed by the team and the league, the Lions will head to Kansas City to take on the defending Super Bowl champions for the Thursday night season opener.

It will be the Lions’ first trip to Arrowhead Stadium since 2013. The Lions last played the Chiefs in 2019, a nailbiter win by the Chiefs at Ford Field.

The Lions have not played in the Thursday night opener since its inception in 2002, which isn’t too surprising. But the positive buzz around them has them on the radar of the schedule makers as a team worthy of prime time game attention, after having zero scheduled prime time contests last year before they were flexed into Week 18 “Sunday Night Football.”

The NFL is buying into the buzz around the Detroit Lions

Based on the fully leaked Green Bay Packers from Matt Schneidman of The Athletic, the Lions will play at Green Bay in Week 4 of “Thursday Night Football” and host the Packers on Thanksgiving Day. A new schedule rule for this year says teams can play more than once on a Thursday night, but the Lions only have two short week turnarounds for their three total Thursday games and it’s unlikely they’ll have another short week on the schedule.

We also have seen when two more division games will be on the Lions’ slate. Via Alec Lewis of The Athletic, in concert with Schneidman’s Packers’ schedule leak, the Lions will play at the Minnesota Vikings in Week 16 on Christmas Eve and host the Vikings in Week 18.

The schedule release show at 8 p.m. ET Thursday night on NFL Network will unveil the entire 2023 Lions’ schedule, if we don’t already know it by then.