Bear Digest

Bears Officially Stateside This Year

A report earlier this week saying the Bears would not face the Chiefs in Germany proved true as the league has released its 2023 international schedule.

Gene Chamberlain

USA Today
In this story:

The Bears received a schedule reprieve from European travel.

There will be no game in Germany against the Chiefs, as Peter King reported earlier this week in his weekly column. This had been a source of great guessing throughout the offseason.

Instead, it's the Miami Dolphins who will have the distinction of playing Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City Nov. 5 at Frankfurt Stadium.

The league on Wednesday released several games ahead of Thursday's complete regular-season schedule, including the international games and a few other encounters of special interest.

The Bears-Chiefs game will apparently be in Kansas City. King had reported the Chiefs wanted to protect that game as one to be played at Arrowhead, and they have the right as a team that was scheduled to play overseas according to league practices.

In fact, no NFC North team is required to go to Europe this year. Atlanta is the only NFC team to make a trip overseas.

The first international game is Oct. 1 at Wembley Stadium with the Falcons playing Jacksonville, one of two games the Jaguars play overseas. Jacksonville plays one road and one home international game.

It's likely to mean the Bears wind up with an international game in 2024. Their last game out of the country was in 2019 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against the Raiders.

The NFL requires teams to play at least one game every eight years, but with the number of international games expanding every year it's more likely they'd play one sooner rather than later.

Expect it to be a scheduled home game they give up when they do play out of the country next, because they have never had to give one up for an international game. In 2024, they'll have nine home games on the schedule.

Some of the holiday and quasi-holiday games have been released. The Jets host the Dolphins in the first Black Friday game ever while the Eagles are hosting the Giants on Christmas Day at 3:30 p.m. Christmas falls on a Monday.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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