When the NFL released its 2022 game schedule last Thursday, there were a few things that immediately stood out. The Detroit Lions schedule once again featured an early bye week (Week 6), they had some potential cold away games late in the year, they’ll play on Christmas Eve and New Year’s day, and of course, the big one: the Lions were the only team in the NFL to not have a game in primetime.
This ruffled a lot of feathers amongst the fan base—and understandably so—but the league points to the fact that the Lions hosting a Thanksgiving game acts in a defacto primetime slot because of the national attention it receives, it just happens that it is played at 12:30 p.