The Lions and Vikings will close out the 2024 NFL regular season on Sunday night in a battle for the NFC’s top seed.
As expected the final regular season game of the 2024 NFL season will decide the NFC North winner and the conference’s No. 1 seed for the playoffs. On Sunday night, the NFL announced that the matchup between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings has been flexed to “Sunday Night Football” for Week 18, making it the final game of the season.
The winner of the game will be crowned the NFC North champion and will earn a first-round bye as the NFC’s top seed. That is true regardless of whether the Lions win or lose on “Monday Night Football” against the San Francisco 49ers this week.
This is the second time in three years the Lions have been flexed to the final game of the regular season. In 2022, the Lions and Packers finished on “Sunday Night Football,” with Detroit defeating Green Bay—holding the Packers out of the playoffs, but narrowly missing the playoffs themselves.
This year, they’ll have a similar opportunity. But instead of just playing spoiler—and forcing the Vikings into the fifth overall seed in the playoffs—they’ve got plenty to play for themselves. Detroit has never earned the No. 1 seed in the Super Bowl era, and they could certainly use the bye week given the amount of injuries players are still recovering from. For example, running back David Montgomery is reportedly targeting a return in the divisional round, and if the Lions earn that bye week, that could mean Montgomery won’t miss a playoff game.
This will be the Lions’ sixth primetime game this season and their third time featured on “Sunday Night Football.” They are currently 4-0 in primetime games this season.
Here’s the important information for the Lions vs. Vikings finale:
- Who: Vikings (14-2) at Lions (13-2)
- Where: Ford Field — Detroit, MI
- When: 8:20 p.m. ET — Sunday, January 5
- TV: NBC
