2024 NFL schedule: Bears to play Jaguars in London
Oakland Raiders running back Josh Jacobs (28) goes in for a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019, in London. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland)
Tim Ireland/AP
The Bears have known since January that they were set to play a game in London this year.
Now they have a date and an opponent: Oct. 13 against the Jaguars at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Kickoff is at 8:30 a.m. Chicago time.
The NFL announced the Week 6 game Wednesday as part of its rollout of the 2024 schedule. It will mark the Bears' return to the same stadium where they lost to the Raiders five years ago. They've been to London two other times: in 1986 for a preseason game against the Cowboys and in 2011 to face the Buccaneers.
"We enjoyed it in 2011 when we won," chairman George McCaskey said in March. "And we didn’t enjoy it in 2019 when we lost. [In] 2019, even though we played terribly the entire game, we still had a chance at the end to win it. So that was a long plane ride home. Gotta win. That’s the bottom line.
“In terms of engagement, it’s a great opportunity. We see the U.K. as it’s one of our international home markets and we see it as an exciting and potentially very lucrative market for fan engagement.”
The NFL is set to announce the full schedule for all 32 of its teams Wednesday. The league said it developed the slate from more than a quadrillion possible schedule combinations.
The Bears will play eight regular season games at home, eight on the road in America and one in Europe, for which they'll be the home team.
They've known their 2024 opponents since January. In addition to playing home and road games against NFC North opponents, the Bears will host the Rams, Seahawks, Titans, Panthers and Patriots at Soldier Field. They'll travel to Arizona, San Francisco, Houston, Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.