The Chicago Bears will head to Detroit for a Thanksgiving matchup with the Lions in 2026, the league said Thursday, setting up the rivals to meet on the holiday for the 21st time. It will be the second Thanksgiving meeting between the teams in three years and the sixth holiday matchup in the last 12 years.
The Bears’ trip to Ford Field will be their sixth Turkey Day visit there in 13 seasons, another sign of how often the league has leaned on this NFC North pairing when the holiday schedule comes around. The Bears are the reigning division champs, while the Lions finished last in 2025 despite having a winning record, giving the game a different edge than a typical late-November divisional showcase.
Ben Johnson will also return to Detroit on Thanksgiving, adding a familiar face to a matchup that already carries enough history. In 2024, the teams last met on Thanksgiving, and the Bears’ previous holiday game in Detroit ended in a final-minute meltdown. Dan Wiederer said the Bears figure to be in a much healthier state for this year’s Thanksgiving trip, which could be a key game in the NFC North title race.
The Thanksgiving slot remains one of the NFL’s most durable stage settings, built around the Cowboys and Lions and now stretched across a broader holiday calendar. Earlier this week, the league announced Dallas will host Philadelphia in its Thanksgiving showcase, and on Wednesday it said the Rams will host the Packers on Netflix on Thanksgiving Eve. The schedule keeps growing beyond the holiday itself, with the NFL having featured multiple games on Christmas Day since the 2021 season and expanding into Black Friday and New Year’s Eve as well.
The broader calendar still has its own guardrails. The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 limits the league’s ability to stage games on Friday and Saturday nights during the high school and college football seasons, which is why dates such as Halloween on a Saturday, the second Friday in September and the second Saturday in December can matter in the scheduling calendar. The league’s 2026 season will end with Super Bowl LXI on Feb. 14, 2027, and the Bears-Lions Thanksgiving game now sits among the early markers on that road.
For Chicago, the timing gives the Bears another nationally visible test against a division rival that knows the stage well. For Detroit, it is another Thanksgiving home game in a tradition that keeps drawing them back. Colton Pouncy summed up the mood in one line: Should be a fun one.
