The NFL schedule was released earlier this month, amidst a fanfare of matchup leaks and team-made videos. Immediately, analysts began taking a look to see which team had the easiest or toughest schedule.
The Detroit Lions, in particular, were noted for being among the very top teams in 2025 in terms of strength of schedule - at least, before the season begins. But have you ever wondered why certain teams have harder or softer schedules than others in any given season? Why aren't they more balanced?
In reality, comparison of schedule difficulty can be assessed as soon as the regular season ends and the lists of the teams that face off against each other, and who hosts whom, are all locked into place.
Most know about the home-and-away series against division rivals - it's an easy thing to see when the Lions face Green Bay, Chicago, and Minnesota twice each season. But the rest of the schedule is built on rotations within rotations.
The NFL is incredibly formulaic in building schedules, year over year, and the current 32 team, eight division format takes full advantage in making that formula as predictable and simple as possible. From NFL.com, here's their list of factors that apply:
- Six games against divisional opponents — two games per team, one at home and one on the road.
- Four games against teams from a division within its conference — two games at home and two on the road.
- Four games against teams from a division in the other conference— two games at home and two on the road.
- Two games against teams from the two remaining divisions in its own conference — one game at home and one on the road. Matchups are based on division ranking from the previous season.
- The 17th game is an additional game against a non-conference opponent from a division that the team is not scheduled to play. Matchups are based on division ranking from the previous season.
Let's break these down a bit more, though, because the league leaves information out of this. What it doesn't say, first and foremost, is that of the 17 games each team plays every year, 14 of them for the following year (and actually, many years to come) are fully known before the opening snap of the season. No guessing required.
Step 1 above is simply the aforementioned division rivalry. Six games known, year in and year out; home and away against each of the other three teams in the division. That's the easy one.
Steps 2 and 3 include what are essentially "round-robin" series where all teams from one division face all teams from a different division. This year, Detroit, along with the rest of the NFC North, plays every team from both the AFC North and the NFC East.
Since those divisions include teams such as the Ravens, Bengals, Eagles, and Commanders, that contributes to the difficulty of the schedule this year, on paper at least.
Beyond that, though, is the question of who hosts, and who packs their bags and goes on the road for each game. A longer look at the entire NFC North schedule, though, shows how this is broken out.
Essentially, for division vs. division (DvD) games, each division is split into pairs of teams that both host one pair and travel to the other pair from the opposing division. For the NFC North, those pairs are the Lions with the Bears, and the Packers with the Vikings.
In DvD games against the NFC East, for example, both DET & CHI host the pair of NYG & DAL, while going on the road to the WAS & PHI pair. This rotation is pre-determined.
Since the NFC North plays the NFC East, South, and West once each every three years, we know already that in 2028, this set of matchups between the NFC North & NFC East will come around again.
When that happens, the hosting and visiting pairs in DvD games will flip - and if the Giants are suddenly a juggernaut by then, then it will seem as if the league is unfairly forcing the Lions to visit yet another great team. In reality, that would just be a matter of circumstance.
The same is true for the NFC North's DvD rotation against the AFC. This season, the Lions and their rivals get the honor of facing the entire AFC North; DET & CHI both host CLE & PIT while visiting BAL & CIN.
Since the AFC v NFC DvD matches are on a four year rotation, we know that this same set of matchups will occur in 2029. Just as before, the hosting duties for each of those games will swap places that season, to keep things fair over the long run.
The remaining three games that round out each team's schedule are less predictable, but not entirely unknown. These are the ranked, or positional, games, where teams that finished out in the same position in each division face off against each other.
For the Lions, since they won their division last year, they get to face three other division champions - also increasing the difficulty of their schedule for the season.
This is the part of the schedule for the following season that has to wait until the current one closes out, as each team's position within their division - and that of their prospective opponents - is potentially in flux until Game 272 of the season ends.
And yet, there are some things that can be known in advance. First off, in Step 4, the league notes that the position games within the conference are against the two other divisions that aren't already accounted for.
So, before the season began last year, the league already knew that the NFC North champion would face off against the champions from both the NFC South and NFC West. That also applied to each division's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place.
Left out of the breakdown posted by the NFL, though, was that hosting duties for these positional games are also predetermined, and on a similar rotating basis. This year, the positional games against the NFC South are all hosted by the NFC North.
In return, the Lions, and the rest of the division, will travel to their respective opponents from the NFC West. That's how the league can guarantee one home and one away game for each in-conference positional series, without running into issues down the road.
To clarify, positional games between intra-conference divisions can be hosted by the same division in back-to-back years. The flip between hosting and visiting between each pair of divisions is every three years as the guarantee.
As an example, the NFC North will host the NFC East in positional games in both 2026 & 2027. In 2029 & 2030, the NFC East witll return the favor and open their doors as hosts both of those years.
Finally, in Step 5, the league has added a 17th game to every team's schedule in recent years. This is another positional game, against a team from the opposing conference. Once again, the Lions knew before last season began that they would be facing a not-so-random team from the AFC West this year, and more specifically, that it would be a road game.
This is because the AFC vs. NFC positional games are locked into the same inter-conference matchups as those from the full DvD set of games two seasons prior. In 2023, the Lions played against the full slate of teams from the AFC West - including the season-opening win on the road against the then-defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.
Now it's two years later, and that division against division pairing is used for the final positional game. Since the Lions won their division, they faced the AFC West champion this year - KC again, this time around. Also, in that 17th game, each conference swaps hosting duties every year.
So, this year, every AFC team will host their NFC positional counterpart - again, to prevent year over year imbalances in home vs. away games.
So, what does all this mean? Well, two things.
First: The league didn't "give" the Lions their schedule, except in terms of the week-by-week season flow. Most of it was predetermined well in advance, and for the rest of it, the team earned it by clinching the division title last year. These rotations are built, in part, to ensure that at least once every eight years, each team will host every other team in the league.
This allows fans who live outside easy travel to their team's stadium to still get a chance to see their favorite. Of course, international/ neutral site games do play havoc with this, but that's a whole separate discussion, along with the actual ordering of the schedule.
Second: Detroit's schedule for the next few seasons is already known, for the most part, in terms of who they'll play and what the split of home and away games will be. Unless the NFL tweaks the home/ away rotations, here's an advance look at the schedule through 2028:
In 2026, the Lions will have:
• Annual NFC North rotation (six games, home and away against CHI, GB, & MIN)
• NFC South - TB & NO (home), ATL & CAR (away)
• AFC East - NE & NYJ (home), MIA & BUF (away)
• Positional games: NFC West (road), NFC East (home), and AFC South (home)
In 2027:
• NFC North rotation
• NFC West - SF & ARI (home), LAR & SEA (away)
• AFC West - KC & LAC (home), LV & DEN (away)
• Positional games: NFC East (home), NFC South (away), and AFC North (away)
In 2028:
• NFC North rotation
• NFC East - WAS & PHI (home), NYG & DAL (away)
• AFC South - HOU & IND (home), JAX & TEN (away)
• Positional games: NFC West (home), AFC East (home), and NFC South (away)
So there you have it; now the opponent breakdown makes more sense, and if you're a fan outside the Detroit area, you can better plan if and when you'll get to see the Lions come to your backyard!
