Top 5 revenge games on the Detroit Lions 2023 schedule

On the Detroit Lions 2023 regular season schedule, here are five games with a revenge game angle that’s worth noting.

Now that we know the Detroit Lions 2023 regular season schedule, it can be sliced and analyzed in any way you can think of. Straight out game-by-game predictions. Most important games. Games that should be comfortably marked as wins. Ranking (insert position) the Lions will face this season.

But here, as the title gives away, we’re taking it to revenge games. A worthy hat-tip goes to Adam Rank of NFL.com for the inspiration, and the inclusion of the Lions on his list of revenge games for the 2023 season. But that was really a jumping off point to extend to at least one other “revenge game” on the Lions’ schedule this year.

The definition of a revenge game is obvious, but still worth a clarification for anyone who might need it. It’s a player going against his former team. Maybe a coach going against a team that fired him. It’s a shot at a piece of redemption for those who have been scorned, to show who didn’t want you what they could still have. It’s an opportunity to prove you are clearly better than who you were replaced with too, as a twist of the metaphorical, regret-dipped (for the team that let you go), knife.

On the Lions 2023 schedule, here are the top five revenge games.

Top 5 revenge games on the Detroit Lions 2023 schedule

5. at Green Bay Packers, Week 4

The Lions knocked the Packers out of the playoffs with a Week 18 win last season, in what will now be known as Aaron Rodgers’ final game as a Packer. Even with Jordan Love under center now, many of the same Packers’ players were on the field at Lambeau for that game to end last season and certainly have sour memories of the loss.

This game will be the Lions’ second Thursday night game in the first four weeks of the season. It’s an opportunity for them to make a real statement, but the Packers have a revenge angle that’s in play.

4. vs. Carolina Panthers, Week 5

First it was running backs coach Duce Staley, albeit for very understandable personal reasons due to his mom’s health concerns. Then it was defensive line coach Todd Wash. And finally, after he lingered available as theoretically one of the top options in a thin free agent wide receiver market, it was wide receiver DJ Chark. All were with the Lions last year, and left for the Panthers this offseason.

The revenge game angle here is focused strictly on Chark though, particularly with this game coming during the six-game suspension of Lions’ wide receiver Jameson Williams. Williams was seen as the in-house replacement for Chark, and at Ford Field in Week 5 he simply won’t be available.

Chark shouldn’t ultimately be a big loss for the Lions. But for one game this season, he’ll have an opportunity to prove those who think that wrong.

3. Week 11, vs. Chicago Bears
2. Week 14, at Chicago Bears

With contract talks going nowhere with Jamaal Williams, the Lions pivoted quickly to David Montgomery in the first days of free agency. They were of course plenty familiar with him after facing him as a Bear the last couple seasons.

Resident Bears fan Rank expressed some personal dread about Montgomery facing his former team twice this season.

"Oh, man — this series is really personal for me. And I guess for David Montgomery, as well. It was a bummer to see him leave Chicago. Signing a three-year, $18 million deal with a division rival adds insult to injury. That’s not a slam on the Lions. Anything but. I was just saying nice things about them. However, it will seem weird to see Monty in the Honolulu Blue. Plus, even if first-round pick Jahmyr Gibbs ends up with most of Detroit’s carries this season, the former Bear is probably going to rush for about six touchdowns in two games against Chicago. You can book that."

Montgomery, naturally and not surprisingly, is most-looking forward to playing the Bears this season. When the Lions’ social media captured asking players who they are most excited to play in 2023, he did not hesitate one bit to pick up the Bears’ placard.

Montgomery doesn’t come off as a guy who needs to be externally motivated, which was definitely part of the appeal of him for the Lions. But he is human, and two games against the Bears this season will naturally carry some extra juice for him.

1. at New Orleans Saints, Week 13

Speaking of Jamaal Williams, if he left the Lions for one of their 2023 opponents in free agency (the Panthers felt like a possibility), he was of course going to get a revenge game. He signed with the Saints after the Lions signed Montgomery, which the first thing to foster the revenge game angle. And it would’ve probably been enough to make it interesting.

Then, during his first press conference with Saints’ media, making his signing official, Williams added a defiant layer.

"The offer they (the Lions) gave me, I felt like was disrespectful and showing that they really didn’t want me to be there like that.” But it’s all love (for Detroit). Like, I know my teammates, everybody there at the Detroit Lions got love for me and all that. But, at the same time, we couldn’t come to terms and — it’s just funny, that’s all.”"

Couching it with “but it’s all love” for those still in Detroit doesn’t not diminish how Williams called the Lions’ offer to him disrespectful, and how he said it showed “they didn’t really didn’t want me to be there like that.”

But there’s a lot of evidence the Lions gave Williams the same offer Montgomery took. And if Williams thinks he deserved more, he’s wrong. Oh, and the market showed he was wrong when the Saints gave him a deal with less money over the same three-year term.

It appears they didn’t pivot off the idea of re-signing him until he wanted more than he’s worth, and they could get a better player on the same deal. But Williams will have his chance to show the Lions they made a mistake, in Week 13 when they pay a visit to New Orleans.