The Super Bowl champion Eagles will host the first game of the 2025 season, and the Lions are a virtual no-brainer to be their opponent.
As has become tradition, the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles will host the opening game of the 2025 NFL regular season on the first Thursday night of the season. As for potential opponents, ESPN’s Adam Schefter quickly laid out some enticing options.
The Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles will open the 2025 NFL season at home on Thursday night. Who will they face? Here are the options:
🏈Commanders
🏈Cowboys
🏈Giants
🏈Bears
🏈Lions
🏈Raiders
🏈Rams
🏈Broncos— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 10, 2025
The Detroit Lions have of course participated in the opening Thursday night game before, beating the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas Chiefs to open the 2023 season. In hindsight, that let the rest of the league know these were not the “Same Old Lions.”
Kevin Patra of NFL.com took a look at four potential Eagles’ opponents for opening night of next season. It’s not a coincidence the Lions were first on his list.
“The NFC matchup we didn’t get to see in the 2024 postseason after the Lions’ disastrous loss to the Washington Commanders. Even losing offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Detroit should still boast an explosive offense led by Jared Goff, Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown. Facing the Eagles’ No. 1 passing defense would make for an intriguing opening-game matchup.”
“We saw how Vic Fangio suffocated the Chiefs. Could Philly do the same to the high-powered Lions, who have a better offensive line? Detroit’s deteriorated defense should be getting back several key starters, including star pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson, which would make a dynamite clash against the best offensive line in football. Dan Campbell’s Lions have done big numbers viewership-wise, including two years ago in the Kickoff Game versus Kansas City. Does the NFL want Detroit in the opener twice in three years, or would it instead save a matchup between the top two teams in the conference for a late-season prime-time bout?”
Lions are low-hanging fruit as Eagles’ 2025 opening night opponent
As revealed by Anthony Crupi of Sportico, the Lions were the most-watched NFL team during the 2024 regular season. Having 10 standalone window/primetime games helped that a lot, as they also saved NFL fans from beating over the head with the Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys in those game windows any more than necessary.
Per Crupi:
“Over the course of 10 wild and woolly national TV dates, Campbell’s charges scared up 22.6 million viewers per game, edging the perennial ratings champs in Dallas by some 175,000 impressions.”
That needle moving ability carried into the postseason, as the Lions’ playoff loss to the Washington Commanders was the fourth most-watched Saturday Divisional Round game ever for FOX.
The Thursday night game to open each regular season always does huge television ratings, since it’s the first meaningful live NFL game anyone’s been able to watch for around seven months. But Lions at Eagles would be a matchup of the widely-regarded two best teams in the NFC, and a possible very early NFC Championship Game preview.
The NFL rarely misses an opportunity to maximize an audience, and its bottom line. Putting one of the Eagles’ NFC East rivals in the season-opening game would be fine, but the Lions traveling to Philadelphia to kickoff the 2025 season would be immeasurably more interesting. The schedule usually comes out in mid-May, so we’ll find out then.
