Week 2 usually doesn’t come with this kind of spotlight, but Lions-Bills does.
Detroit and Buffalo both enter Thursday night at 1-0, and they’ll meet Sept. 17 at the brand-new Highmark Stadium in Buffalo, New York. Kickoff is set for 8:15 p.m. ET, and it’ll be the first regular-season game ever played at the Bills’ new building.
For Lions fans in the Detroit area, the game will air locally on Fox 2. Fans outside the Detroit or Buffalo media market, including ABC Channel 7, can stream it on Amazon’s Prime Video, though that requires a Prime subscription and a smart device with an internet connection.
The Lions are trying to rebound from a wild 31-30 overtime win over the New Orleans Saints on Sunday, Sept. 13, a game Detroit nearly let slip away after building a 21-0 second-half lead. Buffalo also survived a close one in Week 1, beating the Houston Texans 36-31 on the road.
There’s history here, too, and it hasn’t gone Detroit’s way lately. The Lions have dropped their last five games against the Bills, a stretch that goes back to 2010. The last two meetings between Jared Goff and Josh Allen also went to Buffalo.
Buffalo opened the 2026 season with plenty of contender buzz in the AFC, and the team is doing it in a new setting under first-year coach Joe Brady, who replaced longtime coach Sean McDermott after the 2025 campaign.
Oddsmakers have Buffalo favored at home, and the Lions are heading in without two of their starting offensive linemen. Still, Detroit has been in this kind of spot before.
In an early-season game in 2025, the Lions went on the road and handled the then Super Bowl-favorite Baltimore Ravens 38-30. That said, the result didn’t carry all the way through for either team, since neither made the playoffs.
In Other News...
Lions Fans Had Another Reason To Be Furious During Bills Loss
The Lions had enough to process after a 41-31 loss to the Bills on Thursday Night Football, but the broadcast gave frustrated Detroit fans one more thing to notice in real time. Buffalo moved to 2-0 with the win, and Josh Allen did plenty of damage with five total touchdowns, yet the scoreboard on the screen briefly told a different story.
During the telecast, a graphic error incorrectly listed the Bills at 3-0 and the Lions at 1-2, a mix-up that was especially annoying for a fan base already watching its team absorb a costly defeat. It was the kind of small mistake that usually gets brushed off, except in a game like this it only added to the irritation as Detroit tried to make sense of a night that got away from it. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Had Dan Campbell Fuming Before This Game Was Even Settled
The Lions had enough offensive production to keep themselves in the fight at Highmark Stadium, but the bigger issue was how quickly the game slipped away. Jared Goff threw for 327 yards and four touchdowns, yet Detroit spent most of Thursday night chasing Buffalo after the Bills built a sizable lead behind a string of Lions mistakes and a defense that never found steady footing.
Dan Campbell was left visibly frustrated by the way the night unfolded, with the Lions piling up 10 penalties and taking repeated blows up front as Goff was sacked four times. Even with the late push, Detroit could not turn the score into a true comeback, and the loss served as another reminder that the margin for error shrinks fast when the discipline and defensive execution are not there. [Read more 🡒]
Lions Fans Had One More Reason To Hate That Primetime Loss
The Thursday night loss in Buffalo was already a rough one for Detroit, and it came with an extra annoyance for Lions fans watching at home. The Bills beat the Lions 41-31 in a game that pushed Buffalo to 2-0, while Josh Allen piled up five total touchdowns and kept the home side in control through the prime-time showcase.
Still, the broadcast itself gave the night a strange aftertaste. A graphic error briefly flashed the Bills as 3-0 and the Lions as 1-2, and that was enough to set off a wave of social media chatter about a supposed Week 3 script leak. It was just a mistake, but for a fan base already dealing with a frustrating result, it only added another layer to a night they would rather forget. [Read more 🡒]