National Football League

How Lions can use scheduling minefield to stake claim to NFC supremacy

Updated Oct. 10, 2024 9:53 a.m. ET

It's good to be the Detroit Lions right now, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

We're not even particularly close to Halloween, yet Dan Campbell's team faces a spooky stretch of scheduling that's not for the faint of heart, a five-week ordeal of travel and tribulation that has the potential to send the team's campaign spinning off in disparate directions.

It starts and ends with trips to Texas, includes a pair of juicy divisional arm-wrestles, and sees just one home game, which also happens to be the only (on-paper) "easier" contest, with all due respect given to the struggling Tennessee Titans.

There is spice and controversy and the sniff of redemption, directly correlated to Sunday's visit to the Dallas Cowboys (4:25 p.m. ET on FOX), complete with memories of last season's controversial finish — a complicated case of mistaken identity and refereeing error — that are still fresh.

A bit of personal beef doesn't hurt in whetting the appetite either, namely a summer spat between Amon-Ra St. Brown and Cowboys cornerback Jourdan Lewis, the Lions wideout describing Lewis as his least favorite opponent to face, coupled with some personal barbs. And if we're looking at recent history, the last time Dallas lost three straight at home, which it is in danger of here, was during a nasty little spell in 2020.

For Detroit, this weekend is the curtain raiser for a run where the degree of difficulty, on the surface at least, is both fiendish and rare. Following up is a trip to take on Minnesota, where Sam Darnold's cool arm has energized the Vikings, the only undefeated team in the NFC and the only holder of a perfect record in the entire league not named the Kansas City Chiefs.

However you slice it, this is shaping as a bullish year in the NFC North, the only division where every team is above .500.

"I expected this," head coach Campbell told reporters on Monday. "I expect us sitting here in another month and it's going to look very similar. We're all in there together. It's going to be one of the toughest divisions. You don't want it any other way.

"You get to duke it out with some teams that are playing really good football. It's kind of exciting, honestly."

If the Titans at home can be seen as a gimme, even though we know there is no such thing in the cauldron of the NFL, what about the two games that follow? Could it really be that heading to Lambeau Field to tussle with the Green Bay Packers presents as the easiest of the four road games?

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Perhaps. Especially when the Houston Texans, currently the only AFC team (minus the Chiefs) to have won at least four times, have C.J. Stroud bubbling away, emboldened by the motivated, confident pieces around him.

Let's not forget that there is some serious feeling and buzz building behind the Lions, too, not hurt by the aura that even to beat them is to have merely survived them. The Detroit "hangover" has become a thing, with eagle-eyed amateur statisticians pointing out how each of the Lions' four opponents to date have come unstuck in their following game, either by getting thumped out of sight or by being the victim of a sizable upset.

That was the case for the Rams, Buccaneers and Cardinals, who were punished by the Cardinals, Broncos and Commanders, respectively, and for the Seahawks, stunned by the Giants in a result that made a mockery of the form guide.

"We play a certain style and it's what we do," said Campbell, who admitted he had been made aware of the stat and its peculiarities. "No matter whether we win or lose, we always say ‘you're going to know you were in a dogfight.' We're trying to play that way. I don't know what to say other than that."

How quickly things get going in the month and change ahead could be critical. If momentum builds and Campbell's group swagger out of this period with, say, four wins from five, their NFC favoritism may be locked in, especially with a corresponding slip or two from Minnesota. Yet danger lurks everywhere.

First things first, in-form QB Jared Goff wants to atone for last season's Cowboys (mis)adventure at AT&T Stadium.

"I don't want to dwell on something that was eight months ago or whatever," Goff told reporters. "I don't think we got screwed intentionally. It happens, that stuff happens, and you move on."

Moving on indeed, albeit with a minefield to navigate.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX.