The Detroit Lions now have one of the most important dates on their 2026 schedule, even if they still do not know who will be across from them. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Monday the Lions will play in Munich, Germany, on Sunday, Nov. 15, a Week 10 game that will be part of a Fox triple-header.
The league plans to announce the remaining opponents for international games at 9 a.m. on Wednesday on NFL Network, with the full schedule coming Thursday night. That leaves Detroit waiting on the last detail of a trip that will send it to FC Bayern Munich Stadium, one week before the team’s annual Thanksgiving home game on Nov. 26.
The timing is what makes the Munich date stand out. The Lions will go from an international game in Week 10 to their Thanksgiving game in Week 12, and it is still unclear whether they will get a bye week in between. Rod Wood said at the NFL’s annual league meetings in March that he thought it was unlikely the Lions would get a bye week the week right after the international game.
That matters because the league no longer automatically gives teams a week off after international games, a change that can make travel feel heavier once the game is over. For Detroit, the concern is not just the flight to Germany. It is how the schedule lands on the back end, with a short turnaround already built in toward Thanksgiving.
The Lions have been down this road before, though never in Munich. Their two previous international games came at Wembley Stadium in London, where they beat the Atlanta Falcons on Oct. 26, 2014, after Matt Prater made a 48-yard field goal as time expired, and then lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 45-10, on Nov. 1, 2015. Those games are now part of the backdrop for a team trying to manage another overseas trip while the rest of the 2026 schedule is still coming into view.
For now, the Lions know the where and the when. They do not yet know the opponent, and they do not know whether the calendar will give them any breathing room before Thanksgiving. Those answers arrive this week, and they will shape how demanding Detroit’s early-season road through Europe really is.
