The Cardinals and Lions Have Met 32 Times Since 1967. Never Once in Primetime.

Arizona and Detroit have played 32 regular-season games since 1967.

Every single one has been on a Sunday afternoon.

No Monday night. No Sunday night. No Thursday night. No Thanksgiving, Christmas, Saturday, or international game.

No other NFL matchup has played this many times without ever leaving the Sunday afternoon window.

The Cardinals lead the series 17–14–1. The streak has survived two Cardinals relocations, three Lions home stadiums, multiple schedule formats, and nearly six decades of NFL television changes.

Cardinals–Lions by the numbers, 1967–2025

Thirty-two games.

Arizona has hosted 17. Detroit has hosted 15.

Twelve were played in December, 10 in September, eight in November, and just two in October.

Only twice have the teams met more than once in the same season: 1980 and 1993, when the NFL's scheduling formula could still pair non-division conference opponents twice in a year.

The average Cardinals–Lions game has produced 42 combined points.

The biggest margin came in 1969, when Detroit won 20–0 — still the only shutout in the series.

The highest-scoring meeting came in 2001, when Arizona beat Detroit 45–38 in Tempe.

There has been one tie: 27–27 in 2019. That game went to overtime, as did Arizona's 23–20 win in 2002.

And all 32 started in the same kind of window: Sunday afternoon.

Arizona has 44 primetime games since 2002. Detroit has 40. None are against each other.

This is not simply a story about two teams that never get national exposure.

Arizona has played 44 primetime games since 2002. Detroit has played 40.

Detroit also owns one of the NFL's most recognizable standalone traditions: Thanksgiving. The Lions have hosted on Thanksgiving in every season since 1966.

Yet in 60 Thanksgiving games, the NFL has never selected the Cardinals as Detroit's opponent.

Arizona has even hosted Thanksgiving games of its own. When Dallas temporarily gave up its traditional hosting spot in 1975 and 1977, the then-St. Louis Cardinals hosted Buffalo and Miami.

Still no Detroit.

Both franchises have spent decades appearing in standalone national windows.

They have simply never shared one.

Thirty-two meetings. Thirty-two Sunday afternoons.

All 32 Cardinals–Lions games, 1967–2024

Every game below kicked off on a Sunday afternoon.

The home cities changed along the way. The Cardinals played in St. Louis through 1987, Tempe from 1988 through 2005, and Glendale beginning in 2006. Detroit moved from Detroit to Pontiac in 1975, then returned to the city when Ford Field opened in 2002.

Why 32 Cardinals–Lions games produced zero night games

The schedule itself explains a lot of it.

Arizona and Detroit have shared the NFC since the 1970 merger, but they have never shared a division. That means they do not get the automatic twice-a-year meetings that create repeated opportunities for division rivals to land in primetime.

Under the current formula, NFC West and NFC North teams meet on a three-year rotation. They can also meet through the same-place portion of the conference schedule.

Before the 2002 realignment, the formula worked differently, but the basic problem was similar: the teams simply did not meet often enough to create many chances for a national window.

Then comes television selection.

Primetime slots tend to go to division rivalries, major-market matchups, contenders, star quarterbacks, and games expected to matter nationally. A non-division matchup that appears only occasionally has fewer chances to make the cut.

That pattern shows up across the league.

Of the 47 NFL matchups that have never left Sunday afternoon, 41 are AFC-versus-NFC matchups, which generally occur only once every four years.

Cardinals–Lions is different.

It is one of the few same-conference matchups on the list — and at 32 games, it is the longest-running Sunday-afternoon-only matchup by a wide margin.

Cardinals–Lions in 2026 and 2027: two more chances to break the streak

The teams meet again in Week 5 of the 2026 season.

Detroit visits Arizona in Glendale on Sunday, October 11, at 4:25 p.m. ET.

As currently scheduled, that makes meeting No. 33 another Sunday afternoon game.

There is still one possible escape hatch: flex scheduling. A Week 5 Sunday game can potentially move into Sunday Night Football under the NFL's flexible-scheduling rules.

If it stays at 4:25, the streak reaches 33.

Then comes another opportunity almost immediately.

The NFC West and NFC North rotate together again in 2027, meaning Arizona and Detroit are already guaranteed another meeting. After Detroit visited Arizona in 2024, the 2027 matchup will be Cardinals at Lions.

Its date and television window will be assigned when the 2027 schedule is released.

One night game is all it takes.

The first Cardinals–Lions matchup on Monday night, Sunday night, or Thursday night would become a schedulegami — MockSlate's term for two teams meeting in a scheduling window they have never shared before.

After nearly 60 years, this series still has plenty of them available.

See every unused Cardinals window on the Cardinals Schedulegami page, or check the same history from Detroit's side on the Lions Schedulegami page.

Or end the streak yourself by putting Cardinals–Lions under the lights in the NFL mock schedule builder.

About the data

Regular-season games from 1966 through 2025, using the Lee Sharpe / nflverse games dataset with MockSlate's 1966–2001 historical extension.

Cardinals franchise history is treated continuously across St. Louis, Phoenix, and Arizona.

Primetime totals since 2002 come from MockSlate's Primetime & Holiday History. Earlier night-game identification uses MockSlate's historical night-game ledgers, including the Sunday night package beginning in 1987.

Counts refresh after each season.