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NFL 2012 Regular Season will kick off on Wednesday night Sept 5

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Are you ready for some football? On a Wednesday?

We’ve just started the long, dark time of year called the “offseason.”

Some good news arrived Tuesday, delivered straight from the NFL Mountaintops: The offseason will be one day shorter than expected.

The New York Giants will host the season opener on Wednesday, September 5. The game was moved a day earlier than usual in deference to President Barack Obama’s Thursday speech at the Democratic National Convention.

So on Tuesday, the NFL decided to simply move the game to the previous night, Wednesday, September 5. It will be the first time since the fall of 1948 that a regular season NFL game would be played on a Wednesday. On that day, September 22, 1948, to be precise, the Detroit Lions lost to the Los Angeles Rams, en route to a 2-10 season; the Rams finished 6-5-1. (In case you’re wondering, the Philadelphia Eagles won the championship that year.)

This will be the second time in three years that a regular season NFL game will be played on an unorthodox day of the week. In late December 2010, a Sunday afternoon game involving the aforementioned Eagles was moved to Tuesday night due to extreme blizzard conditions in Philadelphia. The visiting Vikings – playing out the string a la the Asheville Tourists after a blizzard back home impounded the Metrodome – won the game behind the unlikely arm of Joe Webb.

The Giants’ first opponents of the 2012-13 season is still to be determined. In 2008, the Giants beat the Washington Redskins in the season opener. With politics once again coming into play in the Giants’ defense of their Lombardi trophy, don’t be surprised if the Giants once again square off against Washington on September 5; the start time will remain 8:30 PM ET. (The two teams have actually faced each other on the season opener for the last two years.)

And in case you’re wondering: no, the Giants don’t play the Chicago Bears this season, so that was not a factor in moving up the season opener to Wednesday to accommodate big-time Bears fan President Obama the following night. The Packers, Saints, and Steelers are strong candidates.

The Super Bowl champion New York Giants will host the season-opener at MetLife Stadium against a team to be announced at a later date. Starting time is scheduled for 8:30 p.m.

Lions reach 3-0 for the first time since 1980

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The Detroit Lions continued to show what their made of on Sunday, by erasing a 20-point deficit and beating the Minnesota Vikings 26-23 in overtime.

 Down 20-0 at the half, it seemed the Lions would fall back to earth a bit and suffer their first loss of the season. But these are not the same old Lions, they roared back and tied the game in the second half behind Matthew Stafford’s 378 yards and 2 touchdown passes. Calvin Johnson was outstanding as well, catching 7 passes for 108 yards scoring 2 touchdowns. The duo connected on a brilliant 40-yard play in overtime, setting up the game-winning field goal by Jason Hanson.

 The Lions are now 3-0, the first time they’ve reached the plateau since 1980. Quarterback Matthew Stafford is finally healthy and is coming into his own, and his top target Calvin Johnson remains the cornerstone for what a top wide receiver in the NFL looks like. The young defense, led by the presence of Ndamukong Suh, is flourishing and quickly becoming one of the best in the league. The Lions are off to a terrific start and have a promising future ahead of them.

 The Lions will try to make it 4-0 when they visit the Dallas Cowboys next week.