In the 2026 season, the Buffalo Bills are getting a prime opportunity to show off their new stadium.
The league announced on May 11 that the Buffalo Bills will host the Detroit Lions in primetime on Amazon Prime Video in the first Thursday Night Football of the season. This will be a week 2 matchup set up for September 17. It will also be the home opener for the Buffalo Bills. This makes it the first NFL game in the Bills’ new Highmark Stadium.
As part of the league’s early rollout of its 2026 schedule, Amazon Prime Video and the NFL announced this simultaneously. One thing to note here is that the full schedule hasn’t been announced as of yet. Likely, it will be announced on Thursday, May 14. The broadcasting partners of the NFL had an opportunity to announce select games earlier this week.
Monday’s announcement of the 2026 “Thursday Night Football” debut comes with another two. The first “Sunday Night Football” game of the year – New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys was also announced by NBC on May 11. Along with this, Fox Sports also shared that the Philadelphia Eagles will play the Cowboys on Thanksgiving this season.
Buffalo has not hosted the Lions since December 2018. Buffalo won that game 14-13 against the Detroit team that featured Matthew Stafford at quarterback and Matt Patricia as its head coach. Star QB Josh Allen from the Bills was making his just 8th start in that game.
The league is expected to release the full schedule for the 18-week 2026 season on Thursday, May 14. Both NFL Network and ESPN2 will have separate broadcasts for the schedule, where experts will be discussing it.
You can catch all these games on TV, the ESPN app, or NFL+.
