Open thread: Who should be the Detroit Lions’ Week 1 opponent?

Who do you want to be the Detroit Lions’ opponent in the 2025 season opener.

The NFL is rolling out its 2025 schedule release all of next week. There will be individual games intentionally leaked out starting on Monday and running all the way through the official full announcement on Wednesday night.

When the schedule is released, fans always seem to look for the same kind of things. How many primetime games is my team getting? When is my team’s bye week? When will my team be playing outdoors? And for the traveling fan type, the NFL schedule release is when people immediately start planning their annual trips.

Today, we’re focusing on the season opener. Week 1 is an opportunity to set the tone for the entire season. Some fans prefer layups in order to just get the first win of the season out of the way. Others want a tough opponent, because it can be a message-sending win, and their team may never be as healthy as they are in Week 1. Think about the Detroit Lions’ season-opening win in 2023. By beating the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, the Lions proved they could hang with anyone, and that turned out to be true all the way through their eventual NFC Championship loss.

So today’s Question of the Day is:

Who should be the Detroit Lions’ Week 1 opponent?

My answer: If you need a reminder, you can find a list of Detroit’s 17 opponents for the 2025 season right here.

Personally, I want the Washington Commanders. What better way to put the bad taste of last year’s playoff loss than to get some revenge on the team that beat you? While opening the season at home would provide an electric atmosphere and this is far from the early-season layup that many want, I can’t think of a better way to open the season than going into their house and getting revenge on the team that bounced you from the playoffs. That revenge needs to be fresh in the players’ hearts. If we get too far down in the season, this game won’t be as much about revenge a as it may be about jockeying for playoff position. I don’t want that. Make it all about the Divisional Round game, and make a wrong a right.

On top of that, it checks off one of the Lions’ seven outdoor away games while the weather is still likely to be nice. It’s inevitable Detroit will play in some cold outdoor games this year, but I don’t mind facing one of their toughest matchups in September.

Who do you want to see the Lions go up against in Week 1? Vote in the poll below, and share your reasoning in comment section at the bottom of the page.