Notes: Detroit Lions have 1-in-5 chance of playing in London in 2021

Last year, the Detroit Lions just barely avoided playing in London. They were reportedly going to face off against the Jacksonville Jaguars overseas, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused the NFL to postpone the International Series before the schedule was officially announced.

However, the Lions may be headed to Europe this upcoming year. On Thursday, the Atlanta Falcons announced that they would be hosting one of their 2021 home games in London. This is relevant to the Detroit Lions because Detroit is set to face off against the Falcons on the road due to the normal schedule rotation.

In the Falcons’ announcement, they noted that their London opponent hasn’t been announced yet, but it will be a non-divisional opponent. That leaves only five options for the Falcons opponent: the Patriots, Jets, Eagles, Football Team, and the Lions.

The Lions would make for an interesting choice mostly because it’s a matchup those in London are familiar with. The last time the Falcons played overseas was against the Lions in 2014 in a 22-21 thrilling win for Detroit. The Lions went right back to Wembley Stadium the following year, but have not been back since.

Will we see a rematch on the horizon? The NFL schedule is typically released in mid-April, so it won’t be long before we know.

• In Thursday’s notes, we shared Michael Rothstein’s last piece on the Lions beat—a cool personal profile on Dan Campbell’s journey from farm to NFL head coach. In that article, he references a fake field goal at Texas A&M that resulted in a touchdown catch from Campbell. Thankfully, YouTube has the clip (start at the 22:47 mark):

• Justin Rogers of The Detroit News has an entertaining two-part mailbag in which he draws parallels between the Lions and the Dolphins’ recent rebuild.

• Tracy Walker as a dad in the gym is extremely cute:

• I joined the Bear Down Report podcast to talk about the Lions’ offseason, 2021 expectations, and my hatred for Marvel movies.

• If you missed it last night, we ran through a bunch of possibilities in our Mock Draft Thursday series debut on YouTube:

• In case you still wanted to check in with our collective ex, here’s Matthew Stafford giving the absolute bare minimum about his personal life to Rams fans:

• Speaking of Stafford, he reportedly had a ‘minor’ offseason procedure on his throwing hand likely to record from the partially torn ligament in his thumb.