THE U.S. National Football League (NFL) announced its regular-season schedule Wednesday.

On Sept. 5, the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers kick off the NFL’s 100th season, the first of 256 games before the playoffs.

For the NFL’s 100th season, the league wanted to switch things up a bit on opening night. Or, maybe, the NFL realized everyone has some New England Patriots fatigue.

The defending champions won’t host the first game of the NFL regular season. Instead, the NFL’s oldest rivalry takes center stage as the Packers face off with the Bears. The Patriots get a great Week 1 game too: They host the Steelers on “Sunday Night Football,” and will celebrate their Super Bowl LIII title then.

While it’s a bit odd to not have the champs on the first Thursday of the season, it’s not like the NFL gave us a bad opener. The Bears are the defending NFC North champions and the Packers, with a new coach in Matt LaFleur and some dirty laundry aired involving Aaron Rodgers, are trying to re-establish themselves as contenders.

The NFL had to cancel its game in Mexico City last year due to significant concerns about the turf. The game reverted to Los Angeles, and the Chiefs and Rams gave us what is likely the greatest regular-season game in history. The NFL will try again. Included in the five international games this season is a “Monday Night Football” game in Week 11 between the Chiefs and Chargers. The other four international games will come from London: Bears vs. Raiders (Week 5), Panthers vs. Buccaneers (Week 6), Bengals vs. Rams (Week 8), and Texans vs. Jaguars (Week 9). The Panthers-Bucs and Texans-Jaguars games will be in the 9:30 a.m. ET window.(SD-Agencies)