logo
Report: Detroit Lions will play Green Bay Packers Week 1 at Lambeau Field

Report: Detroit Lions will play Green Bay Packers Week 1 at Lambeau Field

Yahoo14-05-2025
The Detroit Lions will open the season on the road against one of their NFC North rivals.
The Lions play the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in a 4:25 p.m. game on the first Sunday of the regular season, according to Fox Sports.
Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown (14) leaps into Lions fans as they celebrate 24-14 win over Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024.
The schedule leak lines up with other Week 1 games in the NFL this fall, where the league appears to favoring division games. The NFL previously announced the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles will open the season Sept. 4 against their NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys, and the Los Angeles Chargers reportedly will play their AFC West rival Kansas City Chiefs in Brazil on Sept. 5.
Advertisement
The Lions went 15-2 in the regular season last year and a perfect 6-0 in the division. They finished with the best regular season record in the NFC, but lost to the Washington Commanders in the divisional round of the playoffs.
The Lions beat the Packers, 24-14, at Lambeau Field last November and 34-31 in a Thursday night game at Ford Field in December.
More: Lions assistant David Shaw back in NFL after college layover: 'Always in the back of my mind'
The Packers are coming off an 11-6 season that was good for third place in the NFC North and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Eagles.
Advertisement
Lions president Rod Wood at the league's annual meeting in March he expects the team to max out on primetime games this season. The Lions have the third most difficult schedule in the NFL this fall as judged by Las Vegas win total predictions, according to Sharp Football.
Their road schedule includes games against all three division opponents the Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears, plus trips to 2024 playoff teams the Eagles, Washington Commanders, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams. They also play Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals on the road.
"You're always looking for these nuggets, man, of motivation and that's it," Lions coach Dan Campbell said in March. "This is a challenge. We're competitive, I'm competitive and so, yeah, I love the thought of (playing that road schedule). These are going to be outdoor grass. I hope it rains, it's mud, it's everything, right? The whole deal. And it is, we're in a meat grinder. This is going to be a meat grinder and I've said this before, we could be a better team than we were last year and have more losses. There is a chance that could happen. That's OK. It's OK. As long as we learn from what those are and we get better coming out of them, we'll be good."
Dave Birkett is the author of the book, "Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline." Order your copy here. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Report: Detroit Lions will open 2025 season at Green Bay Packers
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

WATCH: DeAndre Hopkins arrives for Baltimore Ravens training camp
WATCH: DeAndre Hopkins arrives for Baltimore Ravens training camp

Yahoo

time21 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

WATCH: DeAndre Hopkins arrives for Baltimore Ravens training camp

The Baltimore Ravens are gearing up for the 2025 NFL season, which features plenty of new and returning faces within the organization. Several players, coaches, and front-office members are crucial to the team's success this season. One big addition was star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins, a veteran wide receiver and future Hall of Famer, can help make the Ravens' passing game more efficient in the most significant moments. Training camp reporting day is Tuesday, and the efficient wide receiver was among the first players to arrive at the Under Armour Performance Center. Background Position: WR Age: 33 Experience: 13-year pro 2025 cap hit: $2,004,000 2024 recap Hopkins posted his seventh 1,000-yard season in 2023 with the Tennessee Titans and was still productive last year. Following a trade from the Tennessee Titans to the Kansas City Chiefs in October, he caught 41 passes for 437 yards and four touchdowns for the Chiefs over the final 10 regular-season games. Hopkins added three receptions during the postseason and caught a touchdown pass and a two-point conversion for the Chiefs during their loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. 2025 outlook The move gives the Ravens a legit third option at wide receiver and one of the NFL's most efficient trios of pass catchers. Hopkins, most importantly, provides quarterback Lamar Jackson with an elite red zone target. Biggest question: Can Hopkins take Ravens' passing game to bigger heights? Of the 70 wide receivers who've had 500 targets since 2013, Hopkins has the fifth-lowest drop rate at 1.6%. Last season, the Ravens' wide receivers ranked 30th in the NFL with a 5.1% drop rate. With the opposing defenses likely to lock in on Derrick Henry even more in 2025, Hopkins provides the Ravens with an elite pass catcher who'll produce in the most challenging moments. Hopkins has been one of his generation's most productive wide receivers, having been selected to five Pro Bowls and named first-team All-Pro three times. Since entering the league in 2013, his 984 receptions lead all wide receivers, and his 12,965 receiving yards top all players. This article originally appeared on Ravens Wire: Ravens training camp: DeAndre Hopkins arrives for year 1 in Baltimore

Packers signing rookie WR ahead of training camp
Packers signing rookie WR ahead of training camp

Yahoo

time21 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Packers signing rookie WR ahead of training camp

The Green Bay Packers are signing a rookie wide receiver ahead of Wednesday's start to training camp. According to multiple reports, the Packers will sign undrafted free agent Will Sheppard, a rookie out of Colorado, to the 90-man offseason roster. Sheppard (6-2, 203) originally agreed to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following the 2025 NFL draft but failed his physical. He also participated at the Denver Broncos minicamp as a tryout player but was not signed. After four seasons at Vanderbilt, Sheppard transferred to Colorado and was an important player for the Buffaloes in 2024. He caught 48 passes for 621 yards and six touchdowns across 13 games. While Sheppard had five games with two or fewer catches, he also had a six-game stretch where he caught all six of his touchdown passes and Colorado went 5-1. Sheppard played almost exclusively out wide for Colorado. He averaged 1.22 yards per route run, per PFF, a relatively poor number at the college level, but Sheppard did catch 12 of 24 contested catch opportunities and only had two drops. He previously caught 152 passes for 2,067 yards and 21 touchdowns over 42 games at Vanderbilt. He caught nine touchdown passes in 2022 and eight more in 2023. Sheppard played more in the slot (roughly 20 percent of snaps) while at Vanderbilt and was a more efficient receiver overall, averaging 2.12 yards per route run in 2022 and 1.93 in 2023. Sheppard participated at the East-West Shrine Game. During pre-draft testing, Sheppard ran the 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds -- a slow time for a receiver his size -- but also hit 40.5" in the vertical leap and covered 10-6 in the broad jump, giving him a Relative Athletic Score of 8.72. From Lance Zierlein of "Fifth-year senior with steady catch production over the last four seasons. Sheppard has good size and average speed. However, he will run routes below his optimal play speed and leaves too many routes unfinished. His ball skills are much better down the field than underneath and he toggles between a spectacular catch and a frustrating lack of catch finishing. He sees a high number of routes contested but lacks the feistiness to win those battles at a high enough rate." Sheppard joins a fascinating receiver group for the Packers featuring rookies Matthew Golden, Savion Williams and Sam Brown Jr. Sheppard was among a group of players working out for the Packers on Monday. Expect the signing to become official on Tuesday. This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Packers signing rookie WR Will Sheppard ahead of training camp

NFL offseason power rankings: No. 7 Green Bay Packers are good, but want greatness
NFL offseason power rankings: No. 7 Green Bay Packers are good, but want greatness

Yahoo

time21 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

NFL offseason power rankings: No. 7 Green Bay Packers are good, but want greatness

Give the Green Bay Packers this much: They won against every single team they should have beaten last season. The Packers faced 11 teams that finished outside of the top 10 in Jeff Sagarin's rankings, and went 10-1. They lost to the Chicago Bears in the season finale as they sat starters in preparation for the playoffs, and it still took the Bears a last-second field goal to win. Winning every game (when giving normal effort) against non-elite teams is not easy. The NFL isn't college football. Every team is capable. You're not able to schedule Kent State in the NFL. The Packers beat every team they were expected to beat. That's the good part. The bad part is the Packers did not record one quality win all season. They faced the 15-win Lions, 14-win Vikings and Super Bowl champion Eagles six times, including playoffs, and went 0-6. The best win the Packers had all season was against the Rams, who were good by the end of the season but were 1-4 after losing to Green Bay. That Rams team the Packers beat wasn't good in Week 5. Beating every mediocre to bad team on the schedule and losing to every good team sums up the Packers' conundrum. They might have the deepest roster in the NFL after years of good drafts. But when you look at the top of the Packers roster, there's a glaring lack of true superstars. Among all the major All-Pro teams last season, only two Packers got recognition: right tackle Zach Tom, who just signed a mammoth extension, was a first-team pick only from Pro Football Focus, and safety Xavier McKinney was a consensus first-team selection. In 2023, the only Packers player to get any All-Pro recognition was kick returner Keisean Nixon. Having a stellar safety and kickoff returner is great (Nixon said after the season he doesn't want to return kicks anymore, though he softened that stance a few months later), but that's generally not the nucleus of a Super Bowl team. It's a very good team, but can it reach greatness without any true superstars? [Get more Green Bay news: Packers team feed] "The thing that's been on my mind as we concluded this season is we need to continue to ramp up our sense of urgency," Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said, via the team's site. "We've got a bunch of good guys in that locker room, we've got a bunch of talented guys in that locker room, and I think it's time we started competing for championships, right?" When you have no real weakness, chasing championships is a realistic goal. The challenge is figuring out a way to elevate after the oddity of a fairly disappointing 11-win season. The quickest path is if Jordan Love recaptures the form that he had late in the 2023 season, which helped him get a four-year, $220 million contract extension. Love wasn't bad last season. He just wasn't better than the previous season, leads to some questions about his true ceiling. The Packers can also point to their historic youth as a way for the roster to improve. Two years ago, the Packers were the youngest team based on weighted age (which takes into consideration how many games each player appeared in) to win a playoff game since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. Last season the Packers were again the youngest team in the NFL. None of the Packers' key players, other than 2024 addition McKinney, are considered to be the best at their position in the NFL, but being really good in your early 20s gives you a chance to be elite in your mid-20s. Maybe natural progression pushes the Packers to being a contender. But the Packers come into this season in a weird spot. They're good. Really good. It's hard to win 11 games in the NFL. But are they Super Bowl good? That'll probably depend on whether their many good players can graduate to something better. Offseason grade The Packers grabbed two high-priced free agents. Guard Aaron Banks got a four-year, $77 million deal to leave the 49ers, and cornerback Nate Hobbs signed a four-year, $48 million deal to come over from the Raiders. The big departure, it terms of name value, was cornerback Jaire Alexander, who was cut after some rocky moments and many missed games in Green Bay the last couple seasons. The draft was interesting because the Packers, whose depth at receiver has been lauded, took a shot on speedy Texas receiver Matthew Golden with the 23rd pick. Perhaps Golden can be the alpha receiver Green Bay needs. The Packers also signed right tackle Zach Tom to a four-year extension at high-end market rate with a record-setting signing bonus. It was going to be hard for the Packers to top last offseason, when they nailed free-agent additions Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney, and the additions this year seem unlikely to move the needle much. Grade: C Quarterback report Jordan Love wasn't bad last season, though some offseason narratives would lead you to believe he was. But he was mostly just OK. His raw numbers fell a bit. Part of that was missing two games due to injury. But numbers like completion percentage, yards per game and interception rate were worse. His touchdown rate was up, as was yards per attempt. Passer rating was barely better, inching from 96.1 to 96.7. It wasn't a bad season for Love, but a stagnation. Curiously, the Packers became one of the run-heaviest teams in the NFL. They were 30th in pass rate over expectation (PROE) after being 10th in 2023. Love's attempts per games fell significantly, from 34.1 to 28.3. Green Bay got a very good season out of running back Josh Jacobs, but the shift was a bit odd for a team that had just paid its quarterback $55 million per year. This offseason the Packers have been sensitive about the notion that Love regressed. 'What is a step back, is what I'd ask,' Love said. 'Everybody has different opinions, things like that. You've got to block that stuff out. It's all about the goals of the team. At the end of the day, I'd say we won more games than we did the year before. So that's why I ask people, what is a step back?' BetMGM odds breakdown From Yahoo's Ben Fawkes: 'The Packers have had a win total between 8.5 and 11.5 in every season since 2010, so an over/under of 9.5 at BetMGM for this season is nothing new. Green Bay is favored in its first eight games (five of them under a field goal, though) and 13 games overall, and is a slight favorite (-135) to make the postseason. The defense loses Jaire Alexander, but adds Nate Hobbs at corner, and has five projected starters who were first-round picks. Green Bay has gone over its win total in five of the past six seasons." Yahoo's fantasy take From Yahoo's Scott Pianowski: "There is always talent in the Green Bay receiver room. But do the Packers want to lean into a featured receiver? That hasn't been the case in recent years. No Green Bay pass-catcher has gone past 100 targets since Davante Adams left town. Until I see usage changes from Matt LaFleur — a play-designer I do respect, by the way — I can't draft any of these wideouts proactively, though I don't mind the current market price on splash-play tight end Tucker Kraft." Stat to remember The Packers signed Josh Jacobs to a four-year, $48 million deal last offseason, and it was a bit of a risk. Jacobs was awesome in 2022 as he got All-Pro honors for the Raiders, but plummeted in 2023 after a long contract standoff. The Packers were right. Jacobs had 1,329 rushing yards and became the focal point of Green Bay's offense. The advanced stats loved him too. His Pro Football Focus grade was third best among running backs. He had 1,113 yards after contact via PFF, behind only Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry. He was fifth in rush yards over expectation, via Next Gen Stats. Jacobs, who also had 15 rushing touchdowns, was fantastic. Jacobs is 27 years old and while running backs can hit the wall at any time, there's no good reason to believe he's about to slow down. The Packers should be able to rely on him for at least another season. Burning question Will the Packers defense maintain the momentum? Fans aren't always right when they yell about firing a coach. But the Packers fans seemed to have been spot on about wanting to move on from defensive coordinator Joe Barry after the 2023 season. Many wanted him gone after 2022 too. The Packers finally changed defensive coordinators last year, luring Jeff Hafley from his job as head coach at Boston College to run their defense. And the Packers' defense had a significant improvement under Hafley, finishing in the NFL's top six in points and yards allowed. In Barry's final two seasons with Green Bay, a defense with a lot of first-round talent was 17th each season in yards allowed and was generally unimpressive. The Packers were 27th in defensive DVOA in 2023 and seventh last season. There isn't a good reason to believe the Packers defense will regress much. There's only one new projected starter and that's expensive free-agent addition Nate Hobbs. He'll replace Jaire Alexander, who was undoubtedly talented but missed a lot of games and had turned into a distraction. The Packers' projected starting defensive lineup has five first-round picks, three second-round picks and had a nice improvement last season. It should be in the top 10 again. Best case scenario Jordan Love suffered a sprained MCL in his left knee late in the Packers' opener. It's fair to wonder if that injury, and a midseason groin injury, affected his play all season. Over the last half of the 2023 season, Love looked like a future star. That's why the Packers made him, at the time, the highest-paid player in NFL history. Love hasn't had a long stretch of elite play, but he has shown it. Maybe Love, with Matthew Golden added to a pass-catching unit that includes Jayden Reed, Romeo Doubs and Tucker Kraft, stays healthy and plays to that elite level he flashed two seasons ago. The Packers won 11 games with Love being good but not great last season. That's how Green Bay could overcome the Lions and everyone else in the NFC North to win the NFL's best division. And if the Packers are good enough to win the NFC North, they'd be good enough to make the Super Bowl. Nightmare scenario It's not impossible to win a championship without an elite player. The 2007 Giants had just one Pro Bowler, defensive end Osi Umenyiora, though it also had Hall of Famer Michael Strahan. It was also an outlier champion that wasn't dominant in any particular area. The 2020 Buccaneers had just one Pro Bowl player, which was defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, but also multiple future Hall of Famers including Tom Brady (that's right, JPP made the Pro Bowl while Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Tristan Wirfs, Ndamukong Suh, Lavonte David, Antoine Winfield Jr., Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown didn't ... OK, back to the Packers preview). Usually Super Bowl champions have a few dominant players and most have at least one future Hall of Famer. It's hard to see any Packers ascending to an All-Pro level other than safety Xavier McKinney repeating (linebackers Quay Walker or Edgerrin Cooper maybe? Offensive lineman Elgton Jenkins finally making it?), but there's also no weakness on the roster. The Packers are probably going to win double-digit games again. Their floor is extremely high. But would another playoff season without any quality wins satisfy anyone? The crystal ball says The Packers are a team that is the sum of its parts. It's hard to say that a team with as many above-average starters as the Packers have isn't a Super Bowl contender, and if everything goes right — including Jordan Love playing like he did to end 2023 — Green Bay can win a championship. But something has to change from last season, when the Packers were very good but didn't record one quality win. Until that happens, it feels like the Packers will remain stuck in a tier below the true Super Bowl contenders. It's not the worst spot to be, but it might be difficult to figure out a way to move up one more level.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store